Miracle-driver from Japan does the unthinkable
By Fernando Cassia
Friday 27 June 2003, 11:19
(Reproduced with kind permission of the editor of ‘The Inquirer’ - http://theinquirer.net/?article=10215 )
HAVING AN EXTERNAL USB CD-Writer or Harddisk works wonders as long as your operating system is in good shape. But if someday the system stops booting, you are lost. Booting from good old MS-DOS or Windows Bootdisks - even fitted with the needed third party NTFSDOS or EXTFS drivers - gives you access to your fixed hard disk only, but none of the USB peripherals can be accessed from the DOS command line.
Before you start scratching your head, let me repeat that this is not related to your favourite Linux distro’s or Windows XP/W2K/98/ME’s USB support, this has to do with people like me, booting some flavour of DOS to copy files around or using DOS-based partition back-up software.
Imagine that you want to use Paragon Drive Backup, Powerquest’s Drive Image, or Norton Ghost, to backup your hard disk partitions to that nice 120gb external USB 2.0 hard disk you just bought. You can’t do it. Or if your wife/husband has managed to mess up her/his system so badly that it can’t boot anymore, yet she/he wants you to have a copy of those nice digital pictures stored on a compactflash card plugged into the compactflash reader?. No way, Jose. Not from DOS, used to be the phrase.
Well, now you CAN.
The minor miracle here is using a driver file called USBASPI.SYS (“Panasonic v2.06 ASPI Manager for USB mass storage”). Given the right parameter incantations, this 16-bit Panasonic-developed DOS driver will let your system boot good-old DOS -any flavour, maybe even Caldera’s OpenDOS and recognize all USB devices connected to the respective controllers. So this USB device identification is also useful for debugging/troubleshooting purposes.
However, it should be noted that this driver will 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. Then you need an elusive “ASPI mass storage driver” to map HDs and flash disks it to a drive letter in DOS. This one goes by the name DI1000DD.SYS, commonly referred to as the “Motto Hairu USB Driver”. Don’t ask why it’s called that, I don’t know.
Before you continue reading and decide to go out and do “bad things” let me mention that legalese on the Panasonic site most probably prevents you from downloading and using this driver on non-Panasonic devices, yet according to reports that are floating around on the Internet, people have been able to use these “universal drivers” on a wide range of systems with different USB connectivity, UHCI, OHCI, and USB 2.0’s EHCI with the NEC chipset.
The Panasonic DOS drivers seem to work on most USB chipset implementations, including Intel and NEC, as well as NVidia, VIA, and SIS. It seems Panasonic engineers didn’t want to have to write a driver every time for every different chipset, so they wrote this “universal” driver to work with all possible USB controllers.
Now the hairy details for DOS old-timers like myself who actually enjoy editing config.sys [Cough. Ed.]:
The driver switches you can use are: device=(path)USBASPI.SYS [/e] [/o] [/u] [/w] [/v] [/l[=n]] [/f] /r] [/slow] [/nocbc] [/norst] [/noprt]
The driver scans all three USB controller specs by default, but you can limit which controllers are enabled using these switches:
/e EHCI spec (USB 2.0)
/o OHCI spec (newer USB 1.x)
/u UHCI spec (older USB 1.x)
And so far I learned what these switches mean:
/w Wait, displays text message for attaching or swapping USB devices
/v Verbose, shows status messages - recommended
/l[=n] LUN, specifies highest LUN # to be attached to
device ID (default=0)
Example config.sys and autoexec.bat files on a DOS
Bootdisk with USB support for an USB CD- (ROM/R/RW) or Harddisk looks like this:
[config.sys]
DOS=HIGH,UMB
lastdrive=Z
device=HIMEM.SYS
REM The following line loads the 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
* Aqua Highlighted files above can be downloaded Here in zip format.*
The Panasonic driver also seems to recognise some TI Cardbus controllers, making it possible to use USB peripherals attached to USB (even 2.0!) Cardbus cards. Your mileage might vary. Knowledge of the Japanese language might be required to read and understand the Panasonic licence agreement or the cease-and-desist letters. Explore at your own risk.
The minor miracle here is using a driver file called USBASPI.SYS (“Panasonic v2.06 ASPI Manager for USB mass storage”). Device driver for all The Imaging Source USB cameras except the 33U, 37U, 38U and AFU auto focus series. Intel Core i3 or similar, 2 GB RAM; USB 3.0 or USB 2.0 controller (depends upon camera model) Graphics card with 24 or 32 bit.
-->This topics in this section describe the class drivers, generic client driver, and the parent composite driver that are provided by Microsoft.
Microsoft-provided USB drivers for controllers and hubs
If you previously connected a Fire tablet without first enabling ADB on the Fire tablet, you might need to remove the existing USB device driver and force re-installation of the driver. To remove the non-ADB driver: Using a micro-USB cable, connect your Fire tablet to a USB port on your computer. Setting up the drivers using the Linksys Setup.exe file on your Linksys WUSB6100M; Setting up the Linksys WUSB6100M Max-Stream™ AC600 Wi-Fi Micro USB Adapter; Installing a wireless USB adapter on Windows 8 and higher operating system.
Microsoft provides these set of drivers:
- For USB host controllers and hubs. For more information, see USB host-side drivers in Windows. You can develop a custom host controller driver that communicates with the USB host controller extension (UCX) driver. For more information, see Developing Windows drivers for USB host controllers.
- For handling common function logic for USB devices. For more information, see USB device-side drivers in Windows.
- For supporting Type-C connectors. For more information, see USB connector manager class extension (UcmCx).
Other Microsoft-provided USB drivers
Device setup class | Microsoft-provided driver and INF | Windows support | Description |
---|---|---|---|
USB | Usbccgp.sys Usb.inf | Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Windows Vista Windows XP | Usbccgp.sys is a parent driver for composite devices that supports multiple functions. For more information, see USB Generic Parent Driver (Usbccgp.sys). |
Biometric | WudfUsbBID.dll WudfUsbBIDAdvanced.inf | Windows 8.1 Windows 8 | Microsoft supports USB biometric devices (fingerprint readers) by providing the Windows Biometric Framework. See the Windows Biometric Framework. |
Media Transfer Protocol Devices | Wpdusb.sys (Obsolete) | Windows Server 2008 Windows Vista Windows Server 2003 Windows XP | Note Starting in Windows 7, Microsoft has replaced the kernel mode component of the Windows Vista USB driver stack (Wpdusb.sys) for Windows Portable Devices (WPD) with the generic Winusb.sys. Microsoft provides the Wpdusb.sys driver to manage portable devices that support the Media Transfer Protocol. See WPD Design Guide. |
USBDevice | Winusb.sys Winusb.inf | Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Windows Vista Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) | Winusb.sys can be used as the USB device's function driver instead of implementing a driver. See WinUSB. |
Microsoft-provided USB device class drivers
Microsoft provides drivers for several USB device classes approved by USB-IF. These drivers and their installation files are included in Windows. They are available in the WindowsSystem32DriverStoreFileRepository folder.
How To Install Sys Driver
See, USB device class drivers included in Windows.
Related topics
Sys Micro Usb Devices Drivers
Universal Serial Bus (USB)
USB Driver Development Guide