From: fergp@sytex.com (Paul Ferguson)
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 22:05:29 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Problems
Message-ID: <JR1D3B1w165w@sytex.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


 
I relaize that this is a bit off-topic, but I'm experiencing a problem
that may be just a case of either user stupidity or Stacker. (Okay,
hold the leers and jeers, my laptop has Stacker installed for a
reason.)
 
Trying to (-e) encrypt a textfile with someone's pubkey produces both
"DOS general read errors" and "device not ready" errors. I suspect
that PGP is using some direct BIOS calls for this, which bypass
Stacker, however I haven't looked at the source code yet. (Silly me.)
Every other function of PGP that I have utilized seems to work okay.
After invoking PGP with the following parameters -
 
PGP -e text.txt userid
 
I get these errors. Also, after being bumped back out to the system
prompt, any further requests to access the file system is greeted with
the same errors. (Lucky me.) Anyway, after rebooting the system and
fixing the file allocations errors (yes, usually two to three files
created by PGP named filename.$01, filename.$02, etc. are classified
by DOS as mis-allocated), everything is just peachy. Like I said
before, all othere PGP functions (adding and validating keys, etc)
work okay.
 
I point the finger at Stacker, but I figured it might be worth my time
to toss a message into the group for advice...
 
Cheers.
 
For what it's worth, I don't normally use Stacker for the same reasons
that Steve Gibson forbids his employees to use any disk compression
software -- the problems and possibilty for irreversible data loss
greatly outweigh the silly need to compress.
 

Paul Ferguson                    |  Uncle Sam wants to read
Network Integration Consultant   |       your e-mail...
Centreville, Virginia USA        | Just say "NO" to the Clipper
fergp@sytex.com                  |          Chip...