Mount DOS Partitions as NetWare Volumes

OK, I'll admit it: We still use Novell NetWare at work.

In fact, we use A LOT of Novell NetWare at work. It's a good NOS, stable, not too difficult, and eDirectory is VERY nice. We have hundreds of Novell NetWare 5.1 servers left, and these are the boxes I typically have to deal with.

(On an unrelated note, I have RECENTLY had to virtualize a server running NetWare 4.11 and Oracle. Now THAT was fun... Perhaps I'll do a write-up on that...)

The steps in this document should work on
Anyway, I have a coworker that is responsible for a server that doesn't seem to be working quite right. In fact, she needs to copy the server.exe file from one server to another, but how?

A quick search on the WONDERFUL Novell Support Site yielded the answer.

On the server console, enter the command:

NETWARE_SERVER:LOAD DOSFAT.NSS

At this point you MAY get the following warning message:

NETWARE_SERVER:LOAD DOSFAT.NSS
WARNING: The "Auto Restart After Abend" settable parameter has a value of 1.
When the server abends, it writes detailed information into the ABEND.LOG file
located on the DOS bootable drive. This write will bypass the internal DOSFAT
LSS cache buffers, and there is a chance that it may cause corruption on the
DOS drive's FAT tables. In order to avoid this from happening, you should
either not load DOSFAT.NSS or set "Auto Restart After Abend" = 0.

Are you sure you want to load DOSFAT.NSS (y/n)?Y

Go ahead and hit Y and the module should continue to load.
This is a serious warning, but hopefully we'll only have DOSFAT loaded long enough to copy the file(s) we need, then we'll immediately unload it again.

At this point, the DOS drive (most likely C:) should be mounted to DOSFAT_C (or replace the C with the DOS drive letter used)

Entering the volumes command on the server console should now reflect the newly mounted DOSFAT_C volume.

NETWARE_SERVER:volumes
Mounted Volumes Name Spaces Flags
SYS DOS, LONG Cp Sa
VOL1 OS, LONG Cp Sa
NSS_ADMIN DOS, MAC, NFS, LONG NSS P
DOSFAT_C DOS, LONG NSS P

4 volumes mounted
NETWARE_SERVER:

You should now be able to access the DOS partition in any way you would normally access a NetWare server volume. For example, on a Windows client machine, enter:

C:\>map T:=NETWARE5_SERVER\DOSFAT_C:

Drive T: = STOMOUES_INS1\DOSFAT_C: \

C:\>

When you're done with your DOS partition, I HIGHLY recommend unload the DOSFAT module, to avoid any possible corruption to your DOS boot partition:

NETWARE_SERVER:unload DOSFAT.NSS
Dismounting Volume DOSFAT_C
Volume DOSFAT_C has been dismounted.
...
Module DOSFAT.NSS unloaded
NETWARE_SERVER:

That's it! You've successfully loaded the DOSFAT.NSS module, mounted the DOS boot partition, and unloaded the module.