Dos vs. Windows

I have a Ghost 2003 backup burned on a FujiFilm/TaiyoYuden CD-R.
When trying to restore directly from the CDR I get a failure
error from Ghost that was started from Dos. I tried 3 times
and the error occurred at different points in the restoration procedure.

When I tried copying from dos the ghost files onto a hard drive
partition, it took about 40 minutes to copy for each CD-R.
Then when I tried to used Dos based Ghost using these
files I get an failure error at the same point.

Prior to all this I had copied the CDR's onto another computer
using Windows 2000 and it did not report any errors.

Questions:
1. Is dos not reporting errors?
2. If an error is detected on a sector, is it dos or the application
that's suppose to retry or is it the drive that automatically retries?
3. Are my files copied onto Windows 2000 still good?

I appreciate any insights...

periphsCdr wrote:

I have a Ghost 2003 backup burned on a FujiFilm/TaiyoYuden CD-R.
When trying to restore directly from the CDR I get a failure
error from Ghost that was started from Dos. I tried 3 times
and the error occurred at different points in the restoration procedure.

When I tried copying from dos the ghost files onto a hard drive
partition, it took about 40 minutes to copy for each CD-R.
Then when I tried to used Dos based Ghost using these
files I get an failure error at the same point.

Prior to all this I had copied the CDR's onto another computer
using Windows 2000 and it did not report any errors.

Questions:
1. Is dos not reporting errors?
2. If an error is detected on a sector, is it dos or the application
that's suppose to retry or is it the drive that automatically retries?
3. Are my files copied onto Windows 2000 still good?

I appreciate any insights...


Attempting to copy from a DOS window or from a computer that
was booted from a DOS boot floppy diskette or from DOS floppies
specifically for restoring a Ghost image set?

Ghostrider wrote:

periphsCdr wrote:

I have a Ghost 2003 backup burned on a FujiFilm/TaiyoYuden CD-R.
When trying to restore directly from the CDR I get a failure
error from Ghost that was started from Dos. I tried 3 times
and the error occurred at different points in the restoration procedure.

When I tried copying from dos the ghost files onto a hard drive
partition, it took about 40 minutes to copy for each CD-R.
Then when I tried to used Dos based Ghost using these
files I get an failure error at the same point.

Prior to all this I had copied the CDR's onto another computer
using Windows 2000 and it did not report any errors.

Questions:
1. Is dos not reporting errors?
2. If an error is detected on a sector, is it dos or the application
that's suppose to retry or is it the drive that automatically retries?
3. Are my files copied onto Windows 2000 still good?

I appreciate any insights...


Attempting to copy from a DOS window or from a computer that
was booted from a DOS boot floppy diskette or from DOS floppies
specifically for restoring a Ghost image set?

Both from a DOS boot floppy diskette I created from a Win98 system
and a DOS boot floppy created by Ghost/Windows (which is PC-DOS).

Both had the unusual slowness when I tried copying from the CD-R
drive to the hard drive.

periphsCdr wrote:

Ghostrider wrote:


periphsCdr wrote:


I have a Ghost 2003 backup burned on a FujiFilm/TaiyoYuden CD-R.
When trying to restore directly from the CDR I get a failure
error from Ghost that was started from Dos. I tried 3 times
and the error occurred at different points in the restoration procedure.

When I tried copying from dos the ghost files onto a hard drive
partition, it took about 40 minutes to copy for each CD-R.
Then when I tried to used Dos based Ghost using these
files I get an failure error at the same point.

Prior to all this I had copied the CDR's onto another computer
using Windows 2000 and it did not report any errors.

Questions:
1. Is dos not reporting errors?
2. If an error is detected on a sector, is it dos or the application
that's suppose to retry or is it the drive that automatically retries?
3. Are my files copied onto Windows 2000 still good?

I appreciate any insights...


Attempting to copy from a DOS window or from a computer that
was booted from a DOS boot floppy diskette or from DOS floppies
specifically for restoring a Ghost image set?


Both from a DOS boot floppy diskette I created from a Win98 system
and a DOS boot floppy created by Ghost/Windows (which is PC-DOS).

Both had the unusual slowness when I tried copying from the CD-R
drive to the hard drive.


I seem to recall that DriveImage was slow when running in the
DOS environment. It might be possible to spiff up the DOS a wee
bit by allocating any available extended memory that might be
usable by DOS. It would mean writing a config.sys file and
doing a manual allocation of the RAM.

Ghostrider wrote:

periphsCdr wrote:

Ghostrider wrote:


periphsCdr wrote:


I have a Ghost 2003 backup burned on a FujiFilm/TaiyoYuden CD-R.
When trying to restore directly from the CDR I get a failure
error from Ghost that was started from Dos. I tried 3 times
and the error occurred at different points in the restoration procedure.

When I tried copying from dos the ghost files onto a hard drive
partition, it took about 40 minutes to copy for each CD-R.
Then when I tried to used Dos based Ghost using these
files I get an failure error at the same point.

Prior to all this I had copied the CDR's onto another computer
using Windows 2000 and it did not report any errors.

Questions:
1. Is dos not reporting errors?
2. If an error is detected on a sector, is it dos or the application
that's suppose to retry or is it the drive that automatically retries?
3. Are my files copied onto Windows 2000 still good?

I appreciate any insights...


Attempting to copy from a DOS window or from a computer that
was booted from a DOS boot floppy diskette or from DOS floppies
specifically for restoring a Ghost image set?


Both from a DOS boot floppy diskette I created from a Win98 system
and a DOS boot floppy created by Ghost/Windows (which is PC-DOS).

Both had the unusual slowness when I tried copying from the CD-R
drive to the hard drive.


I seem to recall that DriveImage was slow when running in the
DOS environment. It might be possible to spiff up the DOS a wee
bit by allocating any available extended memory that might be
usable by DOS. It would mean writing a config.sys file and
doing a manual allocation of the RAM.

That may be a thing to try later, but I'm wondering if there's a difference
between DOS and Windows since I'm having problems with reading
the CD-R in DOS but not in Windows.

I'm thinking that DOS is reading in PIO and Windows is reading DMA
and DOS may be prone to errors that it doesn't retry????

periphsCdr wrote:

snipped

That may be a thing to try later, but I'm wondering if there's a difference
between DOS and Windows since I'm having problems with reading
the CD-R in DOS but not in Windows.

I'm thinking that DOS is reading in PIO and Windows is reading DMA
and DOS may be prone to errors that it doesn't retry????




This really depends on what version of Windows. Windows 9X are
really shells for DOS. OTOH, Windows NT, 2000 and XP are true
operating systems in themselves. And also much more complex and
capable than DOS, which is quite rudimentary. It would be unfair
to compare the two. But for the situation described, that of
copying a disk image file, basic DOS (MS-DOS, PC-DOS, Caldera,
etc.), will easily work, albeit slow as described, while using
Windows NT/2K/XP is impossible from the floppy drive without the
entire OS being already installed on the hard drive. And there
are the factors alrady mentioned, such as good memory management,
drivers, etc.

That may be a thing to try later, but I'm wondering if there's a
difference
between DOS and Windows since I'm having problems with reading
the CD-R in DOS but not in Windows.

Asking if there is a difference between DOS and Windows is like asking if
there's a difference between Unix and Windows. They are two totally
different operating systems that have little in common. This is also the
case for Windows 95/98 and ME, not just the NT versions.

DOS will access your disk using your BIOS. For stuff not supported by
either, you need DOS specific drivers (like MSCDEX and CDROM drivers).

Windows (all versions, including 95, 98 and ME ) will access your disk
directly through hardware, using its own drivers and bypassing BIOS (and
DOS) completely. The driver may take 'advice' information from the BIOS, if
it wants to, but usually doesn't need it. (Don't believe this? Try setting
all but your first harddisk to NONE in your BIOS. Boot into Windows and see
what happens)

Windows 95, 98 and ME still use DOS as a "loader". They need to read from
your disk in order to boot, but they need drivers to read your disk. The
drivers cannot be loaded until Windows is loaded. To break through this
circle, the first disk reads are done through good old DOS. When the
neccesary drivers have loaded into memory, and the OS kernel is up and
running, the Windows drivers can take over from the DOS loader and read your
disks directly through hardware. (there's a fallback - if a Windows driver
for a DOS device cannot be loaded, it uses a Windows-to-DOS "conversion"
driver that translates the Windows calls into DOS calls so the driver can
still be used, be it at a performance cost). DOS remains in memory, but is
not doing anything any longer while windows is running.

Windows NT (NT3, NT4, 2000, XP and more) have there own boot loader which is
not based on DOS.

I'm thinking that DOS is reading in PIO and Windows is reading DMA
and DOS may be prone to errors that it doesn't retry????

DOS is using totally different drivers. They may even be using DMA,
allthough it cannot do anything else while waiting for the DMA to complete.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but I understand the differences between
operating systems. What I'm trying to find out is why I'm having
problems reading my CD-R's from DOS and not from Windows.
The files when read from DOS seem to be corrupted, as if it's
not copied correctly, though no errors are reported.

The driver that's on the Win98 boot disk is
Oak Technology, OTI-91X ATAPI CD-ROM device Driver

Thanks.

Mike Looijmans wrote:

That may be a thing to try later, but I'm wondering if there's a
difference
between DOS and Windows since I'm having problems with reading
the CD-R in DOS but not in Windows.

Asking if there is a difference between DOS and Windows is like asking if
there's a difference between Unix and Windows. They are two totally
different operating systems that have little in common. This is also the
case for Windows 95/98 and ME, not just the NT versions.

DOS will access your disk using your BIOS. For stuff not supported by
either, you need DOS specific drivers (like MSCDEX and CDROM drivers).

Windows (all versions, including 95, 98 and ME ) will access your disk
directly through hardware, using its own drivers and bypassing BIOS (and
DOS) completely. The driver may take 'advice' information from the BIOS, if
it wants to, but usually doesn't need it. (Don't believe this? Try setting
all but your first harddisk to NONE in your BIOS. Boot into Windows and see
what happens)

Windows 95, 98 and ME still use DOS as a "loader". They need to read from
your disk in order to boot, but they need drivers to read your disk. The
drivers cannot be loaded until Windows is loaded. To break through this
circle, the first disk reads are done through good old DOS. When the
neccesary drivers have loaded into memory, and the OS kernel is up and
running, the Windows drivers can take over from the DOS loader and read your
disks directly through hardware. (there's a fallback - if a Windows driver
for a DOS device cannot be loaded, it uses a Windows-to-DOS "conversion"
driver that translates the Windows calls into DOS calls so the driver can
still be used, be it at a performance cost). DOS remains in memory, but is
not doing anything any longer while windows is running.

Windows NT (NT3, NT4, 2000, XP and more) have there own boot loader which is
not based on DOS.

I'm thinking that DOS is reading in PIO and Windows is reading DMA
and DOS may be prone to errors that it doesn't retry????

DOS is using totally different drivers. They may even be using DMA,
allthough it cannot do anything else while waiting for the DMA to complete.

periphsCdr wrote:
Sorry if I wasn't clear, but I understand the differences between
operating systems. What I'm trying to find out is why I'm having
problems reading my CD-R's from DOS and not from Windows.
The files when read from DOS seem to be corrupted, as if it's
not copied correctly, though no errors are reported.

The driver that's on the Win98 boot disk is
Oak Technology, OTI-91X ATAPI CD-ROM device Driver

Thanks.


One plausible explanation is that the Win98 driver is the
wrong driver - it is probably programmed in 32-bit whereas
DOS works in 16-bit. If there is no proper DOS driver for
the IDE cdrom, then anything can happen. An alternative
would be to use a SCSI cdrom drive and invoke ASPI.

Ghostrider wrote:

The driver that's on the Win98 boot disk is
Oak Technology, OTI-91X ATAPI CD-ROM device Driver

Thanks.


One plausible explanation is that the Win98 driver is the
wrong driver - it is probably programmed in 32-bit whereas
DOS works in 16-bit.

That is the correct driver for almost any IDE CD-Rom drive with the
DOS that boots from the Win98 startup floppy. Check that MSCDEX.EXE
is loading correctly from the autoexec.bat after the driver has loaded
from config.sys


--
Alex Nichol
Bournemouth, U.K.