[no subject]

However, after I used the PC Transporter's PCINSTALL program to patch
the PRODOS file, the A2.Ramcard driver started misbehaving.

Whenever I got into Finder, it would bring up the dialog:

"There are two volumes called :RAMAEPC online"  (Eject/Initialize).

If I ejected the disk, it vanished from the desktop, but was still
available from other programs (ORCA/Shell, for example).

If I chose to initialize it, I got a second error dialog, which was
something like:

"Getting errors reading /RAMAEPC"  (Eject/Initialize).

Every attempt to initialize the disk produced the same dialog,
_unless_ I gave the disk the same name as an existing volume (e.g.
/RAM5).  I then got a "duplicate volume" dialog, and after renaming
the disk back to /RAMAEPC, it seemed to be working fine.

However, on the following boot, the same problem happened again.


Until I can sort out the problem, I've disabled the A2.RAMCARD driver,
and I'm relying on the generated GS/OS driver (which works fine, if
slowly).

I had similar problems with the System 6.0 version of A2.RAMCARD - it
always asked to reformat /RAMAEPC on the first boot.  The 6.0.1
problem is much more serious, though.

I managed to analyse the problem with 6.0's driver: it seemed that the
very first DRead call to /RAMAEPC after a boot was reading 256 zero
bytes in the first half of the block.  Since the first read was the
directory block, this was causing GS/OS to think the disk wasn't
formatted.  I was able to get around the problem by doing a
single-block read to /RAMAEPC before Finder was loaded.

I have yet to try this trick with the 6.0.1 driver to see if it has
the same problem.

I'm running version 2.0 of the PC Transporter software.


Is anyone else out there using a PC Transporter successfully with the
A2.RAMCARD driver (either 6.0 or 6.0.1)?  If so, which version of the
PCT software do you have?
-- 
David Empson                                                               
dempson@swell.actrix.gen.nz                                                
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand