1.2MB External Drive  (250-1087)  Using the Disk Drive  Faxback Doc. # 5338

OPERATION

The 1.2 MB external drive is used just like your internal diskette drives.
You access it from your programs by referring to the drive letter, and you
can use dir, copy, chkdsk, chdir, mkdir, rmdir, and other MS-DOS utilities
with it.

If your are running MS-DOS Version 3.2 or later, you can also use the MS-DOS
commands format, diskcomp, and diskcopy. The extfmt command is provided for
use with MS-DOS Version 2.0 and later.

The letter of the 1.2 MB drive is displayed when you turn on your computer.
You can also check the drive letter at any time by typing extdrive and press
[ENTER] at the MS-DOS prompt. be sure extdrive.com is available on the cur-
rent diskette or hard disk when you enter the command.

THE NON-STOP OPTION

When you turn on the computer, it loads a software driver that scans the
system for an external diskette drive. If the drive is not connected, the
computer issues an error message, which you must press [ESC] to acknowledge.
You can suppress this error message by including the nonstop option in the
command that loads the driver for the 1.2 MB drive:

1. Using a text editor or word processor, bring up the config.sys file from
   your MS-DOS system disk for editing.

2. Change the device = extdrvr.sys line to read: device = extdrvr.sys non-
   stop.

NOTE: Be sure to type a space before nonstop.

3. Save the modified config.sys file on your MS-DOS system disk.

4. Restart the computer by pressing [CTRL] + [ALT] + [DEL].

DISKETTE FORMATS

The 5 1/4" external diskette drive is specially designed for use with
high-density (1.2MB), 5 1/4" diskettes. It can format these diskettes to
store either 360 KB or 1.2 MB or information.

The drive can also read standard-density (360KB), 5 1/4" diskettes. Writing
to a standard-density diskette with this drive is not recommended, however.
Standard-density diskettes written to by a high-capacity drive might no
longer be readable by a standard-capacity drive.

FORMATTING DISKETTES

New diskettes are blank and must be formatted before they can be used.
Diskettes that have already been used can be re-formatted as a way of erasing
the information on them.

CAUTION: Re-formatting a diskette erases all information on the diskette. Be
sure you do not need any of the information on a diskette before re-format-
ting it.

High-density diskettes can be formatted to store either 1.2 MB or 360 KB of
information. Standard-density diskettes can be formatted only to store 360 KB
and generally should not be formatted in the 1.2 MB drive.

NOTE: Formatting a standard-density diskette to a high-density format will
result in unreliable operation.

To format a high-density diskette in the 1.2 MB drive, use either the extfmt
or backfmt command provided on the Installation and Device Drivers Diskette.
Extfmt is similar to the MS-DOS format command. Backfmt is a "pop-up"
formatter that can be used in the background while you continue working on
another application.

(css 07/30/93)