Question : Floppy disk compression

Whenever I do floppy disk compression and it progresses past “resizing compressed volume file” and says “100% complete”, the message just sits there forever. CTRL-ALT-DEL has no effect. The only way out is a forced shut down via the PC start button.  
After a re-boot and the blue HP desktop without icons, a message pops up that says “There is no disk in Drive A or the disk is not properly formatted. Insert a formatted disk and try again”. If you click OK, a pop-up appears, with drums, announcing that the system settings are being updated.
Then the message says “resizing compressed volume file” and says “100% complete” and the PC freezes up again and the only way out is a forced shut down via the PC start button.
There are times when CTRL-ALT-DEL does get back to the screen that tells you to press any key to continue, but that just repeats over and over and ultimately the only way out is a forced shutdown.
And so, the cycle will repeat itself until you pick up the PC and smash it to the floor until it breaks into a thousand pieces!

Answer : Floppy disk compression

Hi frankoravec.  No rush to respond to this.  Hope I can present it in an orderly and more easily understood manner.  I'll take your points in order.

TweakUI Issue:
-----------------
Depending on where you download it from, it may come as
(a) a standard *.zip file for those who already have WinZip (or other file compression program that handles .zip file types) installed
or
(b) an *.exe file with the familiar Winzip icon, which is a "self-extracting" package for those without WinZip installed.

It sounds like you have the self-extracting .exe version, judging from your description of the way it opens.
When a self-extractor is packed by the creator, they have the option of specifying a folder to unzip the contents to and additionally may have the instruction then to do something with the files automatically once unpacked.

The following download:
http://ftp.pcworld.com/pub/new/utilities/system_resources_tune_up/tweakui133.exe
is such a self-extractor that is set to unzip the contents to C:\Windows\TEMP when double-clicked.
You can change this to whatever other path you want, eg. C:\Windows\Desktop\TWEAK   and that new "tweak" folder will be created and populated with the 4 files when you click the "Unzip" button.

Another option, assuming you have WinZip installed and that it shows on your RIGHT-Click menu, is to unzip the .EXE file manually to a folder of your choosing.   I have a folder  C:\UNZIP  that I created for this purpose, but there are two "Unzip to" options:
1. Right-Click on your downloaded "tweakui133.exe" file, and choose the WinZip option "Extract To ..." and then browse to an empty folder like C:\Unzip
or
2. Right-Click on your downloaded "tweakui133.exe" file, and choose the WinZip option "Extract To Folder C:\..\..\tweakui133".

Option 2 just creates a new folder with the name of the .exe (or .zip) file as a sub-folder wherever your downloaded file happens to be (eg. C:\Windows\Desktop\tweakui133).

However you perform this task, you have 4 files extracted from the TweakUI package.
RIGHT-Click on the "tweakui.INF" file and you will see an "Install" option on the menu.
Choose this, and it creates a new icon in your Control Panel through which TweakUI is now accessible.
You don't need the unpacked folder and contents after it is installed, but it's worth hanging onto the original download.

WinZip is actually pretty easy to use after you have configured it the way you want, and after you get the feel for how it does its job.  It compresses different file types in varying degrees, but will not compress certain image files that are already compressed (gif, jpg).

I like this tutorial for creating zip files.  It is an exe file that runs an animated tutorial in its own viewer.
http://www.lakelandcc.edu/dl/tutorial/winzip.exe
Macromedia Flash version runs in Internet Explorer:
http://www.lakelandcc.edu/dl/tutorial/winzip.htm

Others:
http://www.knet.ca/winzip/winzipcreate.html
http://www.knet.ca/winzip/winzipopen.html
http://ois.unomaha.edu/casde/webshop/webshop/WNZPTUT/WINZIPOK.HTM
http://www.geocities.com/camp1776/help/winzip.html (couple of pages)
http://courses.dsu.edu/cis130/winzip/winzip.htm (couple of pages)
http://ksdl.ksbe.edu/dlresources/tutorials/WinZip_Tutorial.pdf
http://www.cityschools.com/technology/tech_training/WinZipTutorial.PDF
http://www.utpb.edu/utpb_adm/webmaster/tutorials/winziptutorial.doc
http://cartan.cas.suffolk.edu/~limone/winzip.htm

They all have their own slightly different ways of performing the same tasks.

I still use version 8.0 which is the one available from a link on that last site:
http://cartan.cas.suffolk.edu/~limone/files/winzip8.exe
or
http://www.infopackets.com/dloads/winzip80.exe
In fact, those installers actually are self-extracting archives that you could unzip to a folder to see the setup file that would run automatically after being unpacked.

CD-Rom Drive Letter M:
---------------------------

The CD-Rom Drive should normally be designated the next drive letter after your hard drive (or after the last partition of your hard drive is split into more than one partition).
So, your Windows Explorer is showing drive letters A: (always the floppy), C: (should always be the hard drive), and D: (??).
If your CD-Rom Drive is designated as M: then I am not sure what the D: drive is which is showing in the drive list in Windows Explorer.

Possibilities:

1. When compressing floppies, you specified a host drive letter of D: then E: then F: etc, right up to L: and those have bumped up the CD-Rom's Drive letter each time until it is now M:   Remember that, IF host drives exist for compressed floppies AND IF the host drives aren't visible in Windows Explorer (as can occur), then you aren't seeing allocated drive letters between D and M.

2. Your hard drive is partitioned into two parts, and the D: Drive is the 2nd part of it.  The icon shown against it in Windows Explorer would be the same as for the C: Drive if that was the case, and the "properties" would normally show it as FAT32 and with the additional "Tools" tab containing the usual Scandisk, Backup and Defrag tools not shown in a CD-Rom Drive's properties.

3. D: is some remnant of a drive from when it was once the CD-Rom (or even a CD-RW Drive), and is somehow showing as a "phantom" drive.

4. The drive letter M: has been "reservd" for the CD-Rom Drive.  Your autoexec.bat file ISN'T reserving the letter M:, otherwise the line would show as:
LH C:\CDROM\MSCDEX.EXE /D:mscd001 /L:M
to match your config.sys file:
DEVICE=c:\cdrom\OakCdRom.SYS /D:IDECD000

(Note: The /D: that you see in those lines has nothing to do with assigning the letter D: to the CD-Rom Drive).

I suggest that you Right-Click on each of the drives D: and M: (in Windows Explorer or the "My Computer" view) and see what the "properties" tell you about them.
Insert a CD that you know changes the icon for the CD-Rom Drive, and see if it changes ther icon for the D: as well as the M: drives.

It MIGHT be possible to change drive letter assignments and get the CD-Rom drive back to D: BUT ONLY if you are absolutely sure that you DON'T have a 2nd hard drive partition assigned as D: AND IF you are sure that none of the host drives ar assigned letters D: through to L:
TweakUI may help to ensure that it is showing all drive letters in My Computer/Windows Explorer.

Right-Click on My Computer > Properties > Device Manager
Click the + to the left of CDRom > click on the drive that shows when opened out
Click "Properties" button > open "Settings" tab.

You should see "Current Drive Letter Assignment" and "Reserved Drive Letter Assignment". Changing the Start Letter and End Letter to D: would normally reserve that letter to that drive, and a reboot would also reinforce this.

I DON'T recommend messing with drive letters as long as the CD-Rom Drive is working and is accessible.

Incidentally, don't worry about the attributes of your config.sys file.

I'm sorry, but I really don't know what else to suggest about compressing the floppies, because it's not something I have ever made the habit of doing.

Regards
Bill