Using Compressed Floppy Disks without a Compressed Hard Disk

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft MS-DOS operating system versions 6.0, 6.2, 6.22

This information applies to both Microsoft DoubleSpace and Microsoft DriveSpace. For MS-DOS 6.22, use DRVSPACE in place of DBLSPACE for commands and filenames.

SYMPTOMS

You want to use DoubleSpace-compressed floppy disks without compressing your hard disk, but when you run DBLSPACE, the initial setup screen does not provide an option to compress only a floppy disk.

When you try to compress a floppy disk with DBLSPACE /COMPRESS <drive:>, you receive the following message:

   DoubleSpace cannot compress a floppy drive until you have installed
   DoubleSpace on your computer. To install DoubleSpace, type DBLSPACE
   at the command prompt.

   There are no more drive letters reserved for DoubleSpace to use.
   To add more drive letters, choose the Options command from the
   Tools menu.

WORKAROUND

To use DoubleSpace-compressed floppy disks without compressing the hard disk, use one of the workarounds described below. Both procedures create a DBLSPACE.INI file in the root directory of your startup drive and cause DBLSPACE.BIN to remain in memory after startup. Note that the DBLSPACE.BIN driver uses up to 54 kilobytes (K) of memory. You can not use compressed floppy disks without loading DBLSPACE.BIN into memory. For more information on DBLSPACE.BIN and memory, refer to your printed MS-DOS documentation and online Help.

Workaround 1

Create a small, new DoubleSpace drive and then delete it. This creates the DBLSPACE.INI file and loads DBLSPACE.BIN into memory so that you can read the compressed floppy disk drive.

To do this:

1. To run DoubleSpace, type "dblspace" (without the quotation marks) at the MS-DOS command prompt.

2. Choose Custom Setup.

3. Choose "Create a new empty compressed drive."

4. Select the drive you want to use. (DoubleSpace will use the free space on this drive to create a new compressed drive.)

5. When DoubleSpace displays the amount of free space to leave on the drive, use the UP ARROW key to move the highlight bar to the "Free space" setting and then press ENTER. This allows you to change the "Free space" setting.

6. When prompted for the amount of free space to leave on the drive, type a number LARGER than your hard disk drive and press ENTER.

7. After DoubleSpace tells you the maximum amount free space you can leave on your drive, type in that number. For example, if DoubleSpace tells you the maximum amount of free space is 95.55 megabytes (MB), leave 95 MB of free space.

8. Choose Continue.

9. Press the "C" key to create the compressed drive.

10. After DoubleSpace completes, if you do not want to keep the new compressed drive you created, run DBLSPACE and delete the new drive by selecting the Delete command from the Drive menu.

    Alternatively, you can delete the drive by using the following command:

    dblspace /delete <drive:>

    where <drive:> is the new compressed drive.

   dblspace /compress a:

   dblspace /mount a:

Workaround 2

1. Create a C:\DBLSPACE.INI file (where C is your startup disk) with a text editor such as MS-DOS Editor. The DBLSPACE.INI file should contain the following two lines:

         MaxRemovableDrives=2
         LastDrive=F
   

   NOTE: LastDrive= must be set to one letter beyond your last logical drive letter. For example, if your last drive is E, use LastDrive=F in your DBLSPACE.INI file.

2. Copy DBLSPACE.BIN from your DOS directory to the root directory of your startup (boot) drive. For example:

         copy c:\dos\dblspace.bin c:\
   

3. Restart your computer.

     dblspace /compress a:

     dblspace /mount a:

MORE INFORMATION

To remove the DBLSPACE driver from memory, delete the DBLSPACE.BIN file from the root of your boot drive and then restart your computer. You can use the DELTREE command to delete DBLSPACE.BIN:

   deltree c:\dblspace.bin

REFERENCES

Microsoft MS-DOS "User's Guide," version 6.0

MS-DOS Help, DBLSPACE topic