Re: GS/OS and disabled drivers

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Christopher Neufeld <neufeld@caliban.physics.utoronto.ca> wrote:

>    I'm afraid I'm a bit rusty in the details of my computer's OS now.
> Years ago I had tuned the OS to where I liked it, and since then I've
> left it entirely alone. Now I'm not sure what I did, and how to undo it.
>    I didn't want the GNO/ME shell to rattle the 5"1/4 disk drive every
> time I issued a "df" command, so I disabled the AppleDisk5.25 driver in
> System/Drivers, since I had little use for the drive in native mode. Now
> I find I want to do a bit of writing to a 5"1/4 disk under GS/OS, and I
> can't seem to get the driver enabled. I go into the folder, mark the
> icon, select Icon Info, click in the box to re-enable the driver,
> shutdown and power cycle, but the machine still comes up without the
> 5"1/4 driver installed.

Most obvious cause: you haven't set Slot 6 to "Disk Port".

The only other causes I can think of would be:

- the driver is in the wrong place (it doesn't sound like it).

- the auxiliary type of the driver has been modified, indicating that
  it supports fewer drives than you have.  As installed, the auxiliary
  type is $010E, indicating a maximum 14 drives.  The value in the low
  byte can be reduced to $01 (if I remember right) to disable a phantom
  second drive icon.

- the driver has been damaged in some way.  Try copying it back from
  your system floppy.  In fact, try booting from floppy - it should be
  able to access the drive.

> I thought that perhaps I had reached some sort of internal limit, with
> ten devices defined (printers, null device, etc.),

Nope.  There is no hard limit to the number of drivers, only to the
number of devices that each driver supports.

>    I'm confused now. How do I re-enable the 5"1/4 driver, and while on
> the subject, how might I disabled the RAM disk under GS/OS if I ever
> wanted to do it (aside from setting the size to zero in the control
> panel)?

You cannot get rid of RAM5 under GS/OS, except by disabling it
completely.  The RAM5 driver provides substantially faster access to the
RAM disk under GS/OS: without it, GS/OS will use the SmartPort firmware
to access RAM5.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand