Any DOS guru out there please help. A summary of my dilemma, I've got the Acer C110 notebook which does not have a floppy or CD drive, I want to restore my system from the recovery CD's. The CD provided by Acer uses Win98/DOS to load the image configuration. It has on it a USB driver for DOS which does not work for my USB CD drive. Although the BIOS boots from my CD drive, but it freezes when DOS is loading the USB driver. I have this idea, that if I copy all of the files on to the hard drive from the CD and edit the Autoexec and Config it might be able to read the image files and restore the system. Below are the files, can any of you be kind enough to edit these files which would skip the loading of the usb drive and load all files directly from the hard drive. Thanks in advance AUTOEXEC.BAT ============================================ @echo off REM REM Acer Recovery CD AUTOEXEC.BAT file REM Copyright 1999 Acer Incorporated REM --------------- set Master=z: set SRC=z: cls echo Checking the status of your hard disk... echo. rem Checking hard disk status goto Format :Format REM Hard disk exist and formated. a:\tools\smartdrv.exe set HDD=FORMATED call a:\SetRamdr.bat IF NOT '%RAMDRIVE2%'=='' GOTO ramok GOTO xit :ramok set COMSPEC=%RAMDRIVE2%\COMMAND.COM copy a:\command.com %RAMDRIVE2%\ > NUL copy a:\Tools\*.* %RAMDRIVE2%\ > NUL path=%RAMDRIVE2%\;%MASTER%\ a:\Disusb20.com goto %config% :USBCD a:\duse init >NUL lh A:\MSCDEX.exe /D:CD-R01 /S /M:5 /V /L:z a:\tools\smartdrv.exe -z >NUL copy z:\model.dat %RAMDRIVE2%\ > NUL REM A:\tools\Power.exe >NUL %RAMDRIVE2% recovery.bat goto xit :1394CD :ramok lh A:\MSCDEX.exe /D:CDROM1 /S /M:5 /V /L:z %RAMDRIVE2%\smartdrv.exe -z >NUL copy z:\model.dat %RAMDRIVE2%\ > NUL LH %RAMDRIVE2%\Power.exe >NUL %RAMDRIVE2% recover.bat goto xit :xit ============================================ CONFIG.SYS ============================================ [MENU] MENUITEM USBCD, Only For USB CDROM Boot Up MENUITEM 1394CD, Only For 1394 CDROM Boot Up [USBCD] device=a:\himem.sys ;device=a:\Emm386.exe noems dos=high,umb devicehigh=ramdrive.sys /E 4096 devicehigh=a:\duse.exe verbose drives=2 xfer=8 sec=2048 late cdwait=0 cdd=CD-R01 VFLOP [1394CD] device=a:\himem.sys dos=high,umb devicehigh=ramdrive.sys /E 4096 SHELL=A:\Command.com /P /E:512 DEVICEHIGH=INI1394.SYS /BOOT=A DEVICEHIGH=I1394CD.SYS /D:CDROM1 [COMMON] ============================================

What does "Although the BIOS boots from my CD drive" mean as this is not feasible?? If you mean that the BIOS has support for USB CD Drives as a bootable drive, then you do not require a USB DOS Driver, as that is only required for booting from a Floppy Disk. In CD Burning software you can create bootable CD's and if you can boot from USB CD then that is want you need to do. As ACER supply the crappy Recover CD's surely it is up to them to support this, maybe ask them to supply a REAL copy of the O/S??

Yes the BIOS supports USB CD boot, but DOS does not. The recovery program is for DOS only. The BIOS is able to read the CD drive and loads into DOS, where the generic USB DOS driver is loaded (not compatible with my USB CD drive). As for Acer they basically told me to buy their own CD drive which is compatible with the recovery CD's

As the USB CD is recognised by the BIOS as a bootable device, you do not need a DOS driver as the BIOS should emulate an ATAPI drive, and to all intents and purposes DOS should see a standard ATAPI CD drive. In Windows download a Windows98SE OEM boot disk from: http://bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm This is a self extracting WinImage which will create a Boot Floppy, use CD Burning software to re-create this Bootable floppy on CD. If as I suspect the CD drive is emulated as ATAPI in BIOS, then this should assign a drive letter for the CD. Windows 98SE/ME/W2k/W2k3/XP are all bootable CD's, maybe try these first to see if my idea is correct, when USB CD is set to first Boot Device. THIS IS NOT A DOS QUESTION AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH DOS IT SHOULB BE IN THE XP FORUM or GENERAL HARDWARE. FINAL RESPONSE

Not entirely true rogerashley, the BIOS recognizes the USB CD drive but does not emulate it as ATAPI. It is just that, a USB removable drive.

You obviously have selective reading "and to all intents and purposes DOS should see a standard ATAPI CD drive" If you read this article (yes it is Intel not ACER, but bootable USB is an industry standard) it may explain what point I was trying to make!! http://www.intel.com/updates/departments/desktop/dt05011.pdf 'If one sees what one wants to see, then you walk into a lamp post!!'

http://www.intel.com/update/departments/desktop/dt05011.pdf