Knowledge Base

Deleting DoubleSpace Drives Causes the System to Hang

Article ID: 101436

Article Last Modified on 11/19/1999

Microsoft MS-DOS 6.0 Standard Edition

This article was previously published under Q101436

SYMPTOMS

After you delete all your DoubleSpace-compressed drives using the MS-DOS 6.0 DoubleSpace maintenance program, the system may stop responding (hang) when the "Starting MS-DOS..." prompt appears during startup. Pressing the F5 or F8 function key at the "Starting MS-DOS..." prompt may cause the system to appear to operate properly. The system may ask for user input and then hang with a blinking cursor. After hanging, the system cannot accept keyboard input; therefore, a reset is required to restart (reboot) the computer.

CAUSE

This problem occurs if drive C has been set as the last drive reserved for DoubleSpace's use (LastDrive=C) in the DBLSPACE.INI file. The MS-DOS 6.0 DoubleSpace maintenance program does not delete the DBLSPACE.INI file when the last DoubleSpace drive is deleted.

RESOLUTION

To correct this problem, delete the DBLSPACE.INI file and reboot the computer. To do so:

Boot your computer from an MS-DOS 6.0 bootable floppy disk. Make sure that the floppy disk does not contain the DBLSPACE.BIN file.
Remove the attributes from the DBLSPACE.INI file as follows:
c:\dos\attrib -s -h -r c:\dblspace.ini
Delete the DBLSPACE.INI file and remove the floppy disk from drive A.
Reboot the computer.

The system should now boot from the hard disk.

Additional query words: 6.00 double space

Keywords: KB101436