James, I am the author of the UIDE and UIDEJR drivers, and I will try to answer your questions.
> I am trying to set up support for a cd/dvd drive on my freedos. > I am using vbox on a mac running freedos as my operating system. I assume your "vbox" responds the same as a true PC system. If it does not, UIDE/UIDEJR may not work, as they "interrogate" the PCI BIOS to find what controllers and hard-disks are present. > I want to be able to use my cd/dvd drive on my MacBook pro laptop. > I have the drivers for UIDE. I have read the readme file, but it > is very technical. I could use some help loading the drivers. Do note Section 5 of the README file, which gives samples of the commands needed in CONFIG.SYS, or FDCONFIG.SYS in your case, for loading UIDE. > Do I have to edit my config.sys file? Yes, you do. At least a command similar to the following must be added to it, for loading UIDE -- DEVICE=C:\DRIVERS\UIDE.SYS /S100 /D:MYCDROM If you want only a basic non-caching driver, you can load UIDEJR [i.e. "junior" UIDE] using the same type of CONFIG.SYS line -- DEVICE=C:\DRIVERS\UIDEJR.SYS /D:MYCDROM The /D: name must be the same as given to SHSUCDX or SHCDX33E (my equivalent CD/DVD manager), so the two programs can "communicate" correctly re: the CD/DVD drives they handle. Also, since UIDEJR is not a caching driver, it needs no /S cache-size switch. > Do I put the drivers, that I downloaded on my c: drive? They can be on any drive or in any directory you like, as long as the DEVICE= in your command line tells FreeDOS exactly where they are. > I could use some help, my goal is to be able to access my cd/dvd > drive on my mac while in freedos. Like I could put in a cd and > then in freedos change to drive a or b or whatever letter is > assigned the cd drive and access a cd in my MacBook pro cd drive. If you intend only "occasional" use of CD/DVD files, you may want to download my latest 10-May-2011 DRIVERS.ZIP file from -- <http://johnson.tmfc.net/dos/driver.html> Johnson Lam has been my "partner" since 2004 in testing and distri- buting the drivers, and his above website still "hosts" the drivers for me. In the 10-May-2011 DRIVERS.ZIP, the latest UIDEJR.SYS driver takes only 2032 bytes of memory in its "CD/DVD only" form, loaded as -- DEVICE=C:\DRIVERS\UIDEJR.SYS /D:MYCDROM /N1 The /N1 switch tells it "No hard-disks" and saves about 1100 bytes of memory, i.e. it omits disk logic and runs only CD/DVD drives. The latest UIDEJR is "not particular" re: being loaded with an XMS manager, e.g. HIMEM or my own XMGR. If an XMS manager is there, UIDEJR using the above command-line requests 128K of XMS memory as its I-O buffer. The buffer is used only when UltraDMA may NOT be used, as when a DOS program does input to an "odd address" buffer, etc. If XMS is unavailable, UIDEJR will handle such "misaligned" CD/DVD input using old "PIO mode" ["Programmed input-output", i.e. SLOW!]. The above DEVICE= command always places the driver in "low memory" i.e. in the original 640K of DOS memory. If you use DEVICEHIGH= instead, the driver can be loaded into "upper memory" beyond 640K. Doing so requires an XMS manager and either (A) the UMBPCI driver, which can "map" system "Shadow RAM" into the 640K to 1-MB area, or (B) one of the "EMM" drivers such as JEMMEX, or the combination of HIMEMX + JEMM386 or my own XMGR + JEMM386, which can "map" regular memory into the 640K to 1-MB range. UMBPCI is simpler, but more limited in functionality (complex subject!), so if you want to use upper-memory, a better choice is an XMS manager and an EMM driver, or the "combined" JEMMEX. "Upper memory" schemes are admittely a lot more complicated! If you are "new" to FreeDOS, loading UIDEJR just as I show above will handle your CD/DVD files O.K. Do remember to load either SHSUCDX, my own SHCDX33E, or MSCDEX, in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. UIDE/UIDEJR are only the "drivers" for a CD/DVD drive -- Its "file manager" is one of the above 3 programs! You need to add a line in AUTOEXEC similar to -- C:\DRIVERS\SHSUCDX.COM /D:MYCDROM /C The /C switch keeps the driver "where it was loaded", i.e. if into low-memory, it shall not try to "move" itself to upper-memory, and vice-versa. And again, the name after /D: must "match" the name given to UIDE or UIDEJR. My drivers "default" to UDVD1 thus if you give SHSUCDX/SHCDX33E the switch /D:UDVD1 you needn't have a /D: switch on the CONFIG.SYS command-line which loads UIDE/UIDEJR. Anything further, send me a "private" E-Mail, and I shall be happy to respond! Jack R. Ellis ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Achieve unprecedented app performance and reliability What every C/C++ and Fortran developer should know. Learn how Intel has extended the reach of its next-generation tools to help boost performance applications - inlcuding clusters. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-dev2devmay _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
