Cannot write to Drive C

[Vibes]

I have Win98SE. Occasionally, at any time, I get this blue screen of death
message (I also occasionally get a boot failure message, when I switch off
and on, and the PC starts normally: I had a new motherboard fitted by
PCWorld recently as the clock way, way out)

I am told in a web site, in respect of "Cannot write to Drive C:"

"Windows supports the standard hard drive controllers (ST506 and ESDI). With
a SCSI or other non-standard controller, SMARTDrive must be loaded. Windows
detects SMARTDrive and directs all disk access requests through it. Most
compatibility problems are eliminated since SMARTDrive acts as a
double-buffering hard disk device driver.

But even with SMARTDrive loaded, you may still get the above error messages.
To correct, add this entry to your SYSTEM.INI file:


[386enh]

VirtualHDirq=off


This is the highest level of compatibility available with Windows."

Q1 How do I determine if Smartdrive is loaded?

Q2 Any dangers if, irrespective of the answer to that, I simply add the
line to System.ini?

 

[Eric Gisin]

The file you need for SCSI is dblbuff.sys, not smartdrv. They are clueless.

Try virtualhdirq, but I doubt it will help.

Sounds like a hardware problem. Check that all the cables are firmly planted.

 

[Robert B. Clark]

I have Win98SE. Occasionally, at any time, I get this blue screen of death
message (I also occasionally get a boot failure message, when I switch off
and on, and the PC starts normally: I had a new motherboard fitted by
PCWorld recently as the clock way, way out)

I am told in a web site, in respect of "Cannot write to Drive C:"

"Windows supports the standard hard drive controllers (ST506 and ESDI). With
a SCSI or other non-standard controller, SMARTDrive must be loaded. Windows
detects SMARTDrive and directs all disk access requests through it. Most
compatibility problems are eliminated since SMARTDrive acts as a
double-buffering hard disk device driver.

But even with SMARTDrive loaded, you may still get the above error messages.
To correct, add this entry to your SYSTEM.INI file:

<snip>

Have you checked to see if your hard drive is physically faulty? You
should determine the fitness of your HDD before investigating Smartdrv*
further.

*Smartdrv is a real-mode DOS utility for caching disk access. It is only
used in Win98 briefly during the initial boot-up process, then unloaded.

Win98 uses vcache for disk caching purposes. Smartdrv should not be used
in conjunction with vcache.