I'm trying to create a temp. A: drive on my laptop. For one of my classes I have to use an old Dos based program that when I try to save it gives me a fatal error since it can't find an A drive. Is there an easy way to create a temp or a shell A drive, that I can save a few backup files in for this program?

btw, I'm running windows xp media center ed. (yeah, I know, but it came on the laptop that is only like 2 weeks old.)
Thanks

JT Jones

A and B can only be used for floppy drives. Unfortunately, a holdover from the old DOS days. To be able to allocate those letters in your OS, you have to have a floppy drive (either 5 1/4 or 3.5)

A and B can only be used for floppy drives. Unfortunately, a holdover from the old DOS days. To be able to allocate those letters in your OS, you have to have a floppy drive (either 5 1/4 or 3.5)


False - this is a common misconception in teh computer world. you can use the DOS subst command to create a makeshift drive letter in Windows (similar to mapping a drive). i use this method all the time to creat a B:\ drive whenever i need to create a boot floppy or whatever, but don't have a floppy handy (example: create the B:\ drive using 'subst' command, then use a boot floppy creator to write the files to that drive, then burn those files to CD to make a boot CD :))

it is important you don't format the B:\ drive created using this command (i think) it seems that could be disastrous. with that said, you can create the drive you want by creating a folder on your computer and mapping the drive letter to it via DOS - here, i'll just give some instructions like this:

Creat a folder named "floppy" in your C:\ root folder. So, this folder will be C:\floppy\

opening a DOS prompt and type this command: subst b: C:\floppy

When you opening file explorer you will notice you now have a B:\ drive. This will be visible inside windows all day long. It won't help you after you reboot (you may need to re-map and your computer won't see it as a floppy when you reboot)...but it will operate as a floppy inside Windows for all intents and purposes.

When you need to delete this virtual drive, you just need to type subst /D b: in DOS or the Run window to get it to go bye-bye.

I don't know if this helps, just wanted to make it clear it is technically possible to make a psuedo-drive in Windows.

i just replied :)

I'll have to try that somemore. I have never gotten it to work right, but then I think I was trying to sub a whole drive instead of just a folder. Interesting.

I do it all the time. I normally use the B:\ drive as the subst drive because A:\ is normally where I have a floppy.

Maybe that is the key too. My last couple systems came without floppies and hav not gotten around to putting them in so I was always trying to do a default to A since the DOS stuff would only accept A:\ as an option. OH well, more play time

Thanks Shifty, there is always stuff to learn and do with these boxes.

tell me about it - i learn something new every day. you'd be *amazed* at half the crap that is buried in command line stuff with XP alone. just the 'net' and 'control' commands!

Thanks a lot for the help, It is working so far. I'll just put the laptop into hibernate mode so I won't loose the drive/data.

Thanks again
JT Jones