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dobro

dobro

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1 Is fdisk necessary for a Windows installation? If so, where can I find out how to do this?

2 What does "Do not map through this device" mean in Multimedia Devices?

3 How does one assign a particular device to a particular IRQ in Windows 98?

4 In MCI Waveform Driver Setup, there is a message that says "You may configure the amount of memory that will be used for buffering audio data during playback or record." How significant is this setting?

5 Anybody want to buy a computer cheap? :)
 
Howdy
To answer your question about fdisk..If your computer has a NEW hard drive that was not factory formatted then yes you need to run both fdisk and format.

Do you have a start up disk%boot disk for your machine?

Put it in your floppy drive and turn the computer on and let it boot to drive A>

When the A> is on the screen type in fdisk

Answer the questions as they are displayed and always choose the defaults. It is easier and more reliable to do it this way.

When fdisk is done setting up the hard drive it will tell you to reboot your computer for the changes to take effect.

Reboot the computer using the floppy disk again and at the A> type format c:/u/s press the enter key.

Answer all of the questions that the computer will ask with y and in a fewe minutes the disk will be ready for programming. Remeber to reboot befor starting to program the computer.
 
Hey SM2K or somebody like SM2K!
Before the fdisk happens one needs to know how to get the CD-ROM working without Windows being installed. Please explain the steps to load the CD drivers when booting from a floppy on this newly formatted HD. Otherwise the Win9x CD won't do much good.
 
autoexec.bat

A:\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MTMIDE01 /M:10


config.sys


DEVICE=A:\MTMCDAI.SYS /D:MTMIDE01


Put these files on your floppy. Available at www.mitsumi.com These drivers work on just about everything. mscdex.exe is available from c:\windows\command

Emeric
 
Hey drstawl
Thought that I did pretty well seeing I had just finished a 30hr road trip..Sorry about not finishing the explanation.
 
Thirty hours? What do you *do* for a living? Are you really a bear?
Yes, I thought it was a pretty clear explanation also, and the follow-up as well. I checked out my Microsoft boot disk, and it's got things like:

mscdex.exe and Findcd.exe

Will this do it, do you think? Is the extra download really necessary?
 
Last time I was at this juncture (and it sure wasn't just sitting around trying to optimize my system; my HD at work died) I came upon a floppy with a little set-up routine to load the CD-ROM drivers. From there the Win95 disk took over. I would've been lost without it, fumbling around in DOS like Mr. Bungle.
"And when Mr. Bungle completely wiped his system, the puppet show was over...."
As it was, it took ten hours to restore all the apps I had loaded, and then restore the data files that I had backed up. The drive that died was only 1.2GB!
 
In regards to the CDROM setup question. If you have Windows95 on CD, you *probably* have a startup floppy that came with it. If you've ever tried this, then you've probably noticed that it doesn't work! I've seen this with about 4 seperate Win95 OEM boot disks. Problem is that it wants to run Scandisk prior to running the installation program, and scandisk requires that himem.sys be loaded.

If you want to use this startup disk, copy himem.sys from your windows folder to the floppy. Then add the following line to the beginning of the config.sys file on the floppy:

Device=a:\himem.sys

Also, the startup disk will set your CDROM to R: which is a pain because after windows is installed, it'll stick your CD as the last device after your hard drive(s)...usually D: or E:. I believe that you can change this by modifying the mscdex call in your autoexec.bat....if you see R: change it to D: or E: or whatever your CD WILL be after the install.

If you don't have this startup disk then create your own using the procedure that Emeric described.

In regards to fdisk. fdisk is used to create your partitions. I run it every time I reformat a drive. It's probably not necessary, but I typically delete and recreate the partition prior to reformatting.

I have no idea what "map through this device" means but I assume it's used to turn your multimedia "devices" on and off. I'm new to this whole HD recording thing...I just left everything set to default and it works fine.

As far as the buffering issue is concerned, most recording software uses proprietary buffering techniques as far as I konw...modifying them at the root level might give you headaches. Go to http://www.fasoft.com and go to the Links section. There is a link there to a page with techniques for maximizing recording efficiency.

CRAP. I just realized that you're talking about Windows 98. Just stick the 98 boot disk in the floppy, the setup disk in the CDROM, and start the computer up. Everything should run just peachy fine.

As far as the IRQ issue goes...it depends on the board you are trying to set. If it is truely PnP (PCI) then Windows will automatically assign an IRQ and everything will work fine. If not, then you have some options. Most PnP compatible motherboards will automatically assign IRQs to individual PCI slots. This can be turned on and off via the BIOS setup. If it's an ISA card then you need to manually set the card's IRQ and tell Windows what IRQ it's set to. First off, what is it that you need to do?

Slackmaster 2000
 
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