PRB: Cannot Read from Drive <Drive Letter>

 Last reviewed: October 18, 1996
Article ID: Q108165
The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Windows, versions 3.0, 5.0
  • Microsoft FoxPro for Windows, versions 2.5, 2.5a, 2.5b
  • Microsoft FoxPro for MS-DOS, versions 2.5, 2.5a, 2.5b

SYMPTOMS

Mainframe workstation software that maps drives D and E to hold them for future use when using emulation will cause the following error message to appear when a disk drive cannot be read: 

   Cannot read from drive <drive letter>.
Use of the MS-DOS Interlnk program and the INTERSVR command is also a source of this message. Interlnk's drive mapping redirects the client system's drives to the next available drive letters of the server. If INTERLNK.EXE is loaded in the CONFIG.SYS file of the client and the server PC is then disconnected, FoxPro will be told that sequential drive mapping exists, when, in fact, there will be no response when FoxPro checks the drives in sequence that were on the connected PC.

CAUSE

Some FoxPro operations appear to scan all consecutive disk drives.

The following operations have been reported to cause this error on computers with a drive that cannot be read:

  • Running an executable file (.EXE) created by the FoxPro Distribution Kit.
  • Opening a project whose home directory points to a drive that cannot be read.
  • Setting a printer driver in FoxPro for MS-DOS.

WORKAROUND

Reassign the drive letter of the device that cannot be read so that it is not in consecutive order with the other drives.

For example, if drive C is a hard disk drive, and drive D is a CD-ROM drive that causes the error message when it does not contain a disc, reassign the CD-ROM drive letter to drive Z.

You may need to either consult the manual for your CD-ROM drive or use the MS-DOS SUBST command.

NOTE: Reassigning the drive letter may require the use of the LASTDRIVE=<drive letter> command in the CONFIG.SYS file.

MORE INFORMATION

The following hardware configurations may cause a disk drive to report that it cannot be read:

  • A laptop computer does not have a floppy drive A or B.
  • A CD-ROM drive does not contain a disc.
  • A removable hard disk drive does not contain a hard disk.

Additional reference words: 5.00 VFoxWin 3.00 FoxDos FoxWin 2.50 2.50a
2.50b errmsg err msg can't notebook floppies bernoulli box IBM PS/2 80
KBCategory: kbenv kberrmsg kbprb
KBSubcategory: FxtoolGeneral

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Last reviewed: October 18, 1996
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