USB Drivers for DOS - USBASPI.SYS

If your system BIOS does not support booting from USB Disks, or you are using an old PC and willing to access some information from MS-DOS (If you are still using it) then there are few options that came to my notice that can be helpful to you.

The USBASPI.SYS is driver file you need to do this. This file is also known as "Panasonic v2.06 ASPI Manager for USB mass storage".

This driver is capable of mapping only map mass storage devices like external hard disks, cd- roms, cd-rw, dvd-rom, zip, jaz, ls-120, and flash memory to ASPI devices.

The driver switches you can use are: device=(path)USBASPI.SYS [/e] [/o] [/u] [/w] [/v] [/l[=n]] [/f] /r] [/slow] [/nocbc] [/norst] [/noprt]

You should be editing your config.sys and autoexec.bat files and add required changes to start using this driver.

[config.sys]

DOS=HIGH,UMB 
lastdrive=Z 
device=HIMEM.SYS 
rem The following line loads Panasonic's universal USB- controller driver 
devicehigh=USBASPI.SYS /v /w /e 
rem the following is an aspi mass storage driver for usb- connected HDs and compactflash memory cards 
devicehigh=DI1000DD.SYS 
rem The following one loads CD-ROM driver 
devicehigh=USBCD.SYS /d:USBCD001

[autoexec.bat] 
@echo off 
REM the following line adds a drive letter to the usb cd(rom/r/rw) mounted 
LH MSCDEX /d:USBCD001

A very detailed explanation on how to use this driver and various options available with driver are nicely explained at http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/069/1046069/yes-there-are-usb-drivers-for-dos.

There is another interesting document explaining the USB Driver for DOS at FreeDOS Documentation. The details on how to are provided here.  

usbaspi.sys and usbcd.sys available at:http://panasonic.co.jp/pcc/products/drive/cdrrw/kxlrw40an/driver/kxlrw40an.exe

di1000dd.sys available at: http://www.stefan2000.com/darkehorse/PC/DOS/Drivers/USB/mhairu.zip

If the pages don't open correctly better do a google search.

Alternatively, There is one more USB DOS Driver from Cypress. The link for Cypress USB Stack driver for DOS is here.(http://www.pocketec.net/downloads/duse_4_4.zip) 

Free program to create protected partitions on USB drives

Now USB flash drives are cheap and available everywhere. So, securing the drive's contents has become a major issue. To avoid this problem. There is a free software called Rohos Mini Drive  helps in solving this problem. 

This software is a Windows application. It lets you create a password-protected, encrypted, and hidden partition on any USB flash drive.

This clever application works when you plug the USB drive with a Rohos hidden partition into your PC. You will only see the unprotected partition. If Rohos is installed on the computer you can right click the icon in the system tray to connect the hidden partition. If you're using a computer without Rohosinstalled, you can run the "Rohos mini.exe" program in the main partition on your flash drive and enter your password to unlock the hidden partition. 

 

USB Based Data Recovery Software and Tools

Selkie Freedom is the first data recovery product in the Selkie Software line to allow users to back-up their data to a USB key. 

Selkie Freedom is network independent so it doesn’t require a second computer. 

“Not everyone has a second computer to receive their recovered data. This product allows the user to push their data to a USB key, do a re-install on their broken machine, restore the data from the key and be up and running again in no time at all,” says Philip Fleischer, CTO. 

Selkie Freedom is available in three data recovery categories,  Selkie Freedom Photographer, Selkie Freedom Multimedia and Selkie Freedom Office.

Find out more about Selkie Freedom at www.SelkieFreedom.com or www.SelkieSoftware.com. 

USB over IP Capabilities for your USB device. Silex introduced SDKs for network sharing of USB devices. It is called Silex Virtual Link SDKs.

For more information and features of this SDK visit here.