This may not be the best list to discuss this problem, but among the few I
am in, it's the BEST. I am confident that I can get  some answers on this.
 
At my home PC, I have a "revived"  old 386/DX-20 with a Cyrix clock doubler
that makes it behave like a 486/DX at 28mhz. Actually, it is faster than the
486/25 that I have at work. I have plenty of disk space, 10 mb of memory and
a double speed SCSI CD-ROM with a MediaVision sound card.
 
Recently, I installed Windows for Workgroups add on for Windows and I am
pleased with the performance improvement it's showing so far except for
three problems, one solved and two without explanation yet.
 
Unsolved Problem Number 1:
 
When I turned the 32 bit file access on, and I tried to reinstall my ENCARTA
Encyclopedia (also a Microsoft product), the setup program warned me that
the CD-Rom drive was not fast enough for multimedia?????
 
I found that WFWG 3.11 does not use SMARTDRV cache when 32 bit file access
is enabled because it uses its own. SMARTDRV then is set to use only 128k
when Windows is running. That degrades the CD drive performance. I left the
32 bit file access on but also modified the SMARTDRV entry in AUTOEXEC.BAT
to still use 2MB under Windows. The ENCARTA installed without any warning
and the performance of the CD drive seems to be the fine.
 
The problem is that I am allocating 2mb to SMARTDRV under Windows just for
the CD access and I am allocating 1mb more for the 32 bit file access cache
(although the system suggested 3mb). There should be a way to make the CD
ROM access work under Windows for Workgroups without the need of SMARTDRV.
Any
suggestions?
 
Unsolved Problem Number 2:
 
I have a Maxtor 540 mb drive (limited to 1024 cylinders and formatted to
504mb only), and a Western Digital Caviar 280 (an 85mb drive) as a slave.
The funny thing is that 32 bit disk access works on both drives, but 32 bit
file access only works on the MAXTOR drive. The Western Digital drive only
works on 16 bit file access.
 
The problem is that the reason for a drive to allow 32 bit hard disk access
but not 32 bit file access, is that it is not compatible with the Western
Digital 1003 controller. Does this mean that the Caviar 280 is not
compatible with the standard its own company drove into the PC market? This
makes no sense! If someone has a suggestion or knows something I do not
know, please advise.
 
Solved Problem:
 
When 32 bit file access is enabled, some installation programs will not
recognize the disks working with 32 bit file acces. You must deactivate the
32bit file access and then install.
 
 
 
TIA
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