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OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical => Storage => Topic started by: Greg Barrett on October 19, 2020, 03:52:09 pm

Title: ArcaOS USB floppy drive letter assignment
Post by: Greg Barrett on October 19, 2020, 03:52:09 pm
I have installed ArcaOS 5.0.6 to a PC with no internal floppy drives.
ArcaOS still reserves drives A; and B: for nonexistent drives, and when I attach a USB floppy drive and refresh removable media, the drive is mounted as E:
Unfortunately, the installation program I run off of the floppy disk is hard-coded to look on drive A: or B:, so it cannot proceed.
Is there a way i can make the USB floppy drive attach as drive A:?
Title: Re: ArcaOS USB floppy drive letter assignment
Post by: Bogdan on October 19, 2020, 04:06:59 pm
Check the CONFIG.SYS for the entry BASEDEV=USBMSD.ADD ...
and add /FLOPPIES:1 /A_USAGE:1 to this line.
Title: Re: ArcaOS USB floppy drive letter assignment
Post by: Greg Barrett on October 19, 2020, 04:29:43 pm
No change in behavior, I'm afraid.
Title: Re: ArcaOS USB floppy drive letter assignment
Post by: Dave Yeo on October 19, 2020, 04:49:36 pm
Is it a DOS or OS/2 application? If DOS, checkout the subst command, "help subst" on a cmd line.
Title: Re: ArcaOS USB floppy drive letter assignment
Post by: Greg Barrett on October 19, 2020, 05:10:38 pm
The application is for OS/2.
Title: Re: ArcaOS USB floppy drive letter assignment
Post by: Dave Yeo on October 19, 2020, 05:21:42 pm
Unluckily there is not a way to use A: or B: except a real floppy. In theory you might be able to binary edit the installer, changing B: to E: or do the install under VirtualBox or such and move the installed program.
Title: Re: ArcaOS USB floppy drive letter assignment
Post by: Lars on October 19, 2020, 09:54:55 pm
That is not true. If you have no legacy floppy drive, you can force a USB floppy drive to use drive letter A:
The /A_USAGE switch will do but I forgot the correct value. Try 0,1,2.
It is also possible that you need to load IBM1FLPY.ADD for the "drive letter handover" to work (I cannot remember any more).
Or try the other way and remove it from config.sys.
Title: Re: ArcaOS USB floppy drive letter assignment
Post by: Lars on October 19, 2020, 10:12:08 pm
Another thing to try: boot with only the USB floppy attached but not any other USB stick.
Use switch /A_USAGE:1
Title: Re: ArcaOS USB floppy drive letter assignment
Post by: ivan on October 20, 2020, 12:17:27 am
Just by way of information I have SimCity running from a floppy disk mounted in a USB floppy drive that is seen as drive A: 

As Lars says you need both BASEDEV=IBM1FLPY.ADD and BASEDEV=USBMSD.ADD /FLOPPIES:1 in Config.Sys for that to work.
Title: Re: ArcaOS USB floppy drive letter assignment
Post by: Lars on October 20, 2020, 09:32:01 pm
The application is for OS/2.
Hi Greg,
did you receive my two answers for your request?
Lars