PRB: Visual FoxPro Setup Problems with Disk 2

• Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Windows, version 3.0

NOTE: Some products mentioned in this article are manufactured by vendors independent of Microsoft; we make no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding these products' performance or reliability.

SYMPTOMS

When you run the Setup program for Visual FoxPro version 3.0 from floppy disks, after removing Disk 1, inserting Disk 2, and pressing ENTER, you receive the "Insert Disk 2" message continuously, or you might receive any of the following error messages:

• Could not read from the file named <drive>:\VFP2.CAB.
• Unable to expand VFP2.CAB.
• The compressed file '<drive>\VFP2.CAB' cannot be decompressed and may be corrupted.
• System Error: cannot read from drive A:
• Setup: Could not read from file named A:\VFP2.CAB"

CAUSE

There are several possible causes for these errors:

• Software virus.
• Hardware failure.
• Bad floppy disk.
• Compatibility problem with the Distribution Media Format (DMF) used on disk 2 (and subsequent disks in the series).

WORKAROUNDS

To isolate the cause of this problem, perform the following checks, and apply the indicated solution.

1. Test for viruses. Use an up-to-date virus checking program to verify that you do not have a virus on your system. Do this first. If you have a virus on your system, any further tests on the diskettes may give you false results. Moreover, if the Visual FoxPro installation disks have been infected by a virus on your system, you risk infecting other machines on which you attempt to install Visual FoxPro.

   SOLUTION: If you have a virus, disinfect your computer system using an up-to-date anti-virus program. An anti-virus program may not work on the DMF-formatted disk. If you cannot disinfect disk 2, request a set of replacement disks. Replacement disks are not DMF-formatted and are available in 1.44 MB media only.

2. Test the floppy drive. If you have diagnostics software that will check the functioning of your floppy drive, use it to verify that your floppy drive is working properly. If you have had no problems reading and writing to standard floppy disks, your floppy drive is probably not the cause of the problem.

3. Test for a bad disk. If you have another computer available, try to install the disks on that machine. If you have the same problem on the other computer(s), that does not necessarily mean that the disks are bad. Both machines may have a problem reading DMF-formatted disks.

   CAUTION: Disk 2 (and subsequent disks in the installation series) uses DMF. DMF is a new format. Many existing disk utilities such as Norton Disk Doctor, Central Point's PC Tools, and Microsoft's ScanDisk do not recognize DMF and may try to write over the file on the installation disks. Therefore, you should NOT attempt to use disk utilities to diagnose, or even examine DMF-formatted disks.

   NOTE: You cannot copy DMF-formatted disks using the MS-DOS COPY or DISKCOPY commands. Instead, use the copy switch (/C) with EXTRACT.EXE utility, located on disk 1.

   SOLUTION: If you have a bad disk, request a set of replacement disks. Replacement disks are not DMF-formatted and are available in 1.44 MB media only.

4. Check for problems related to the DMF format. (For a description of DMF, see the MORE INFORMATION section, below.) The four known DMF issues and their solutions are outlined below:

   a. Incompatible floppy drives.

         You may have problems if your floppy drive is one of the
         following types:
   

          - SCSI floppy drives, including Flopticals.
          - Floppy drives attached via older MicroSolutions Compaticards.
          - Apple Macintosh floppy drives (even via SoftPC).
          - Early Gateway 2000 Handbook or Colorbook notebooks.
   

         SOLUTION: Request a set of replacement disks. Replacement disks are
         not DMF-formatted and are available in 1.44 MB media only.
   

   b. Incompatible operating systems.

         Operating systems other than Windows version 3.1 (or later) may
         not have the correct floppy drive system files to support DMF.
         Problems have been reported on the following:
   

          - OS/2 Warp Version 3.0.
   

            DMF was developed before OS/2 Warp was released so there was no
            opportunity for compatibility testing. These errors have also been
            reported on OS/2 versions 2.0 and 2.1. Microsoft has been unable
            to reproduce these problems under OS/2 2.0 or 2.1 in testing.
   
            For more information about the DMF and OS/2 Warp Version 3.0,
            please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
   
            ARTICLE-ID: Q122280
            TITLE     : Error Running Setup from DMF Disks Under OS/2
   
          - SoftWindows for the Macintosh.
   
            SoftWindows is not a supported configuration for any of the
            Microsoft Windows-based applications. There has been no formal
            testing of our applications running under SoftWindows.
   
            For more information about the DMF and SoftWindows, please see the
            following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
   
            ARTICLE-ID: Q122279
            TITLE     : Error Installing Application on Power Mac Running
                        SoftWindows
   
            SOLUTION: Request a set of replacement disks. Replacement disks
            are not DMF-formatted and are available in 1.44 MB media only.
   
      c. MS-DOS does not recognize that the disk format on disk 2 is
         different from the disk format on disk 1.
   
         Change-line support on the floppy drive informs MS-DOS when a disk
         and/or the format of a disk has changed. If MS-DOS determines the
         format of the first disk but does not realize that the formatting
         of the second disk is different, the second disk cannot be read.
   
         Use the DIR command on disk 2. If you see a screenful of spurious
         characters, this is probably a changeline problem. If you receive
         disk read errors, a flawed disk cache may be involved.
   
         SOLUTION: Choose one of the following four methods to work around
         this problem:
   
          - Method One: Add the MS-DOS DRIVPARM command to your CONFIG.SYS
            file using the following syntax:
   
             For a 1.44-MB A: drive      For a 1.44-MB B: drive
             --------------------------------------------------
             DRIVPARM=/d:0 /f:7          DRIVPARM=/d:1 /f:7
   
            -or-
   
          - Method Two: Remove Setup Disk 2 from the floppy disk drive and
            press ENTER. Then insert the disk in the drive again and press
            ENTER.
   
            -or-
   
          - Method three: With Setup Disk 2 in the floppy disk drive, follow
            these steps:
   
            a. Bring up the Windows File Manager.
   
            b. Select the drive that contains the Setup disk (for example, A:)
               and press the F5 key to update the directory window. If this
               doesn't work, you may need to select another drive, and then
               switch back to the drive that contains the Setup disk.
   
            c. Press ALT+TAB to switch back to the Setup program, and continue
               installing the application.
   
            -or-
   
          - Method four: If none of the previous methods work, you can force
            the tree to be re-read by following these steps:
   
            a. Press ALT+TAB to switch to the Windows Program Manager.
   
            b. Shell to MS-DOS.
   
            c. At the MS-DOS prompt, change to the installation drive.
   
            d. Press CTRL+C to clear the cache and force MS-DOS to re-read
               the tree.
   
            e. Type exit to exit MS-DOS and return to Windows.
   
            f. Press ALT+TAB to return to the Setup program, and continue
               installing the application.
   
            NOTE: You may have to repeat this process between each
            disk change.
   
      d. Helix Multimedia Cloaking is running during installation.
   
         SOLUTION: Disable Helix Multimedia Cloaking during installation. For
         more information about the DMF and Helix Multimedia Cloaking, please
         see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
   
         ARTICLE-ID: Q128333
         TITLE     : "File Cannot be Decompressed" with Helix Multimedia
                     Cloaking
   
   

STATUS

Microsoft is researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

MORE INFORMATION

Besides a virus or hardware problem, the other major causes of disk 2 failures relate to the new Distribution Media Format (DMF) used for the installation disks.

The root of DMF-related problems is not DMF itself. The two underlying causes are:

• DMF is a new technology that some operating systems or utilities cannot handle reliably.
• Some disk controllers may not recognize the disk change when disk 1 (standard floppy format) is removed and disk 2 (DMF format) is inserted in the drive.

What is DMF?

DMF is a special read-only format for 3.5-inch floppy disks that permits storing 1.7 MB of data (a 17.7% increase over the standard 1.44 MB format).

This is achieved by reducing the inter-sector gap, and adding three sectors per track. This does not affect the ability of arbitrary floppy drives to read the disk, because we have not changed the magnetic recording density. With this reduced inter-sector gap, however, there is not enough room between sectors to allow a floppy drive to reliably write to a DMF disk.

Disks formatted with DMF cannot be copied to a standard high density 3.5-inch disk using the MS-DOS DISKCOPY or Windows COPY commands.

For additional information, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q120006
   TITLE     : XL5C: How to Copy Files from Cabinets on DMF-Formatted Disks

   ARTICLE-ID: Q122209
   TITLE     : Error Message Occurs When Using Extract Utility

   ARTICLE-ID: Q121802
   TITLE     : "Could Not Read From File..." Running Maintenance Mode
               Setup

   ARTICLE-ID: Q79207
   TITLE     : WinWord Setup Fails on Disk 2; DRIVPARM Solution

OS/2 Warp Version 3.0 is manufactured by International Business Machines, a vendor independent of Microsoft; we make no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding this product's performance or reliability.