I'm looking to use a small form factor PC (see PDF) that runs code under DOS 6.22. There is no windows or other OS installed. What I would like to do is to use a memory stick on one of the USB ports to off load data from the system.
I currently use a ZIP drive on an IDE interface for the same function (which works well) but getting rid of the ZIP drive would be a move in the right direction and would reduce power consumption.
I have looked around and there seems to be several ways of potentially doing this. One uses USBASPI.SYS and DUSE.EXE but all the examples I can find on the net all veer off towards CDROM drives and I'm having trouble de-cyphering what's going on in the config.sys and autoexec.bat file examples.
Anybody got any experience of this sort of stuff?
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I don't want to boot from the USB drive - I'll have 512M of disc on module for that. The system gathers data over a period of time (It's a remote logging system - solar powered) and on periodic visits I want to pop a data stick in the usb port (reboot probably) and copy the data off the system and remove the data stick.
The warning/caveat seems to be these do NOT support hotplug, so you have to boot with the USB device attached, or so they say.
In config sys
device=USBASPI.SYS /w /v (put in the right path to USBASPI.SYS)
/w
Wait, displays prompt message to allow swapping/attaching of target USB device
/v Verbose, shows USB details - excellent troubleshooting tool
In verbose mode. USBASPI displays details on controller type and USB devices it detects. It displays the vendor & product ID codes, the controller address range (memory map or I/O port map) of controllers, and the connection speed code for each device.
The link to download the Panasonic version 2.20 driver is
http://hddguru.com/downloa
More information is here:
http://www.computing.net/a
Maybe this will help.
Jeff
Well something is working... I get the screen shot as shown but it doesn't give me a drive letter as I was expecting. The light on the datastick flashes so DOS is seeing the device. How do I get a drive letter for the device?
Thanks
Mark
Screen shot of boot up
Let me think about this.
You want the OS on the pc's ram not the stick.
When we boot the key to dos we map a drive to the key.
I wonder if we can do this when booted to the pc.
I use a program called Himalaya to enumerate attached USB sticks and map them to a drive letter.
I cannot upload the utility i use because it is a *.exe but I wonder if you can find one in the wild.
You could try booting the system with the USB key attached so that it assigns a drive letter (hopefully) or try this in config.sys
device=Boot\emm386.exe noems
device=Boot\USB\USBASPI.SY
device=Boot\USB\Di1000dd.S
Can you not re-name it? Maybe that's not allowed either. Alternatively I could post my email address - but is that allowed? I don't want to break any rules. I have had a quick search on the web and didn't come up with anything.
Why do you think I am getting the 'bad or missing file'? What exactly is device=Boot\....... trying to do?
Sorry, I was in a rush there:
USBASPI maps mass storage devices to ASPI devices
Di1000dd maps the USB hard drive to a drive letter in DOS
Add the following to the CONFIG.SYS file on the PC.
Try it first with only the last three lines
FILES=30
BUFFERS=30
STACKS=9,256
DEVICE=USBASPI.SYS /v /noprt /L=6
DEVICE=DI1000DD.SYS /h0
LASTDRIVE=Z
vg link on
http://www.bootdisk.com/us
Right... got a 256M data stick and formatted it in FAT. DOS sees it OK and even assigns it a drive letter (D:) so all looks good. However if I try and access the drive then the PC crashes and re-boots.
Screen shot now.......
In the BAT file with MSCDEX, add the switch /L: to give the device a "Logical drive letter" -- for example
LH MSCDEX /d:USBCD001 /L:F
The default is the "Next available block device letter" but you can change that with the /L:x switch where x is the drive letter.
As another pointed out, DOS is most likely going to work best (or only) with FAT16 formatted devices.
After the device is mounted to a drive letter, can you use the DOS FDISK to see the partition(s) on the stick? If so, you might be able to delete the non-dos partition, create a partition, and format it with the DOS FORMAT utility.
Mopor wrote " I dont have MSCDEX in the bat file. It sounds like a CD driver - and I don't have a CD drive"
jjjt... suggested:
config.sys
DOS=HIGH,UMB
lastdrive=Z
device=HIMEM.SYS
devicehigh=USBASPI.SYS /v /w /e
devicehigh=DI1000DD.SYS
devicehigh=USBCD.SYS /d:USBCD001
autoexec.bat
LH MSCDEX /d:USBCD001
Notice the reference to MSCDEX here. It looks like a fakeout to treat the USB drive referenced in USBCD.SYS as another kind of block device that can be handled by MSCDEX.
My comment was to add a logical device letter to the MSCDEX command.
MSCDEX is referenced in other articles discussing the interfacing of a USB device in DOS, but you're right, it USUALLY refers to a CD, but a CD is just a block device, the real work is done by USBCD.SYS.
Anyway, just trying to help.
Jeff
You can remove the HIMEM.SYS line (put a REM at the beginning of the line)
Then change all the "Devicehigh=" to simply "Device="
The himem.sys and devicehigh parts are not critical, just trying to push as much code into high memory as possible, but you can test without worrying about memory issues.
Jeff
Sorry, I was away from this thread for so long.
I found a superb article on:
http://www.computing.ne
It covers switches, driver links, examples and roubleshooting.
Here are useful excerpts: To detect your USB Mass storage device (.e.g. a USB 2.0 external hard drive) put this line in your boot diskette CONFIG.SYS file
device=USBASPI.SYS /w /v
If you want specify the "L" drive letter for a storage
device, try:
device[high]=[{path}]di100
If the USB devices are already plugged upon power up and you want to enable only the high-speed USB controller and external hard disk drives, try
device=USBASPI.SYS /e /v
device=DI1000DD.SYS
If you have only a single USB port and no internal floppy, use this CONFIG.SYS combination:
device=RAMFD.SYS
device=USB
If you have a notebook with a USB optical drive, install the ASPI CD-ROM device driver after loading USBASPI.SYS in CONFIG.SYS like this:
device=USBASPI.SYS /w
device=USBCD.SYS /d:USBCD001
and in AUTOEXEC.BAT:
MSCDEX /d:USBCD001
If you want to connect a USB 2.0 optical drive and a USB 2.0 external hard disk simultaneously, put these in the CONFIG.SYS file: device=USBASPI.SYS /e /w
device=USBCD.SYS /d:USBCD001
device=DI1000DD
and in AUTOEXEC.BAT:
MSCDEX /d:USBCD001
For troubleshooting USB connections, install all your devices and boot from your diskette with this in CONFIG.SYS:
device=USBASPI.SYS /v
Thanks for trying guys, the more I play the more errors I get and am certainly getting no closer to a working solution. I don't think I understand enough about what's going on to make best use of your suggestions so I think for now I'm going to have to admit defeat and see if I can find a working solution somewhere and modify it.
Thanks again for trying
mopr
Business Accounts
Answer for Membership
by: JT92677Posted on 2009-07-07 at 07:43:08ID: 24794654
The motherboard has USB 2.0 support, so you might find that the BIOS has "legacy USB support" and the ability to allow you to boot from a USB drive.
Maybe this will allow you to make some progress.