Dosshell freezes with usb.

kpmwrestler · 06-28-2006, 03:12 PM

Hi, I have an ibm thinkpad 380xd. The battery doesn't work, so whenever I want to use it I have to plug it in. I have Ms-DOS 6.22 on the c: drive and windows for workgroups 3.11 on the d: drive. I have cd-rom support (mscdex) and recently found a usb driver and installed it. It works great! It recognized my usb key accurately and works just like windows 9x , nt, 2000 or xp. The only problem I found was that at the dos prompt, the first time you change to the drive the usb key is installed to after you turn it on each time, it says "Invalid media reading from drive e:" [Abort\Retry\Fail] but if I type "R" It does just fine. If you change to the drive in the dosshell or windows 3.1, there is no error, and if you then exit and change to that drive at the prompt, there is no error.
Well, I left it plugged in last night durring a big rain and lightning storm, but there was no power overload or anything, but today when I turned it on and tried to access the usb drive in the dosshell, the whole computer freezes and I have to restart. The really wierd thing is that in windows 3.1 or the dos prompt, It works fine. So I ran scandisk and nothing was found wrong. Any ideas?

Skie · 06-29-2006, 12:13 AM

I didn't realize that there was a USB driver for Windows 3.1. I'm wondering how stable it is. Have you had these types of problems before last night? Other then the invalid media error.

kpmwrestler · 06-29-2006, 09:40 AM

Sorry, I figured it out. It was a memory thing. The storm had nothing to do with anything. I had the problem because I just changed the lines in the config.sys right before I turned it off. The usb drivers took up too much memory. I just rearanged the lines in my config.sys file and everything went fine. About the driver being stable, it isn't really for 3.1, it was meant for dos, but since windows 3.1 is pretty much a shell, it works great. I also figured out why it has the media error. It is because it isn't formatted.

Skie · 06-29-2006, 05:13 PM

Excelent. And thank you for posting how you fixed this.

06-28-2006, 03:12 PM	#1 (permalink)
kpmwrestler Registered User Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 186 OS: win98/winxp, MS-DOS/win31/NT	Dosshell freezes with usb. Hi, I have an ibm thinkpad 380xd. The battery doesn't work, so whenever I want to use it I have to plug it in. I have Ms-DOS 6.22 on the c: drive and windows for workgroups 3.11 on the d: drive. I have cd-rom support (mscdex) and recently found a usb driver and installed it. It works great! It recognized my usb key accurately and works just like windows 9x , nt, 2000 or xp. The only problem I found was that at the dos prompt, the first time you change to the drive the usb key is installed to after you turn it on each time, it says "Invalid media reading from drive e:" [Abort\Retry\Fail] but if I type "R" It does just fine. If you change to the drive in the dosshell or windows 3.1, there is no error, and if you then exit and change to that drive at the prompt, there is no error. Well, I left it plugged in last night durring a big rain and lightning storm, but there was no power overload or anything, but today when I turned it on and tried to access the usb drive in the dosshell, the whole computer freezes and I have to restart. The really wierd thing is that in windows 3.1 or the dos prompt, It works fine. So I ran scandisk and nothing was found wrong. Any ideas?

06-29-2006, 12:13 AM	#2 (permalink)
Skie Manager, Alternative Comp Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Chicago burbs Posts: 2,194 OS: Gentoo Linux, CentOS, OS X My System	I didn't realize that there was a USB driver for Windows 3.1. I'm wondering how stable it is. Have you had these types of problems before last night? Other then the invalid media error. __________________

06-29-2006, 09:40 AM	#3 (permalink)
kpmwrestler Registered User Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 186 OS: win98/winxp, MS-DOS/win31/NT	Sorry, I figured it out. It was a memory thing. The storm had nothing to do with anything. I had the problem because I just changed the lines in the config.sys right before I turned it off. The usb drivers took up too much memory. I just rearanged the lines in my config.sys file and everything went fine. About the driver being stable, it isn't really for 3.1, it was meant for dos, but since windows 3.1 is pretty much a shell, it works great. I also figured out why it has the media error. It is because it isn't formatted. Last edited by kpmwrestler; 06-29-2006 at 09:42 AM.

06-29-2006, 05:13 PM	#4 (permalink)
Skie Manager, Alternative Comp Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Chicago burbs Posts: 2,194 OS: Gentoo Linux, CentOS, OS X My System	Excelent. And thank you for posting how you fixed this. __________________