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Floppy Disk OEM FAT IDs

G

Great Hierophant

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I have been looking at lots of DOS game disk images in a hex editor, and decided to list all the OEM ID labels found on the first sector I could find. The label takes up eight bytes, and identifies which version of DOS or which program was used to format or duplicate the disk.

MSDOS3.2
MSDOS3.3
MSDOS5.0 (MSDOS 5.0-6.22)
IBM 5.0
IBM 4.0
IBM 3.3
IBM 3.2
IBM 3.1
IBM 2.0 (Is there a IBM 2.1?)
TAN 3.2
TAN 3.3
IBMMS3.2
ALF 3.0 - ALF Products Inc. (duplication tool)
IBM PNCI - Peter Norton Computing Inc. (Norton's tools)
ProCopy
?????IHC - Windows 9x (usually indicates the disk's FAT is not original)
KEY DISK (found only on certain games with disk-based copy protection)
WINIMAGE (you know the image is not original if this is present)
VFD 2.1 (an image created with Ken Kato's Virtual Floppy Drive program, never an original disk)
CH-FOR15
Tandy557 - Tandy DOS 2.1
PC Tools


IBM PC-DOS 1.0 & 1.1 do not use OEM ID Labels.

Are there other common labels?
 
Its interesting that when Windows does its IHC stuff, the rest of the FAT is unaffected, as rewriting the OEM string can "restore" the disk, assuming you can figure out the "right" string.

Additional labels :
IBM 5.0 (PC-DOS 5.xx)
IBM 6.0 (PC-DOS 6.xx)
IBM 7.0 (PC-DOS 7.xx)

It appears that or there does exist the following :
MSDOS2.0
MSDOS2.1
MSDOS3.0
MSDOS3.1
MSDOS4.1
MSWIN4.0 (Windows 95)
MSWIN4.1 (Windows 95 OSR2-Windows ME)

I would suggest many of these labels tend to be rare outside OS disks. The MSWIN disks seem to be for boot floppies and floppies formatted by Windows 95/98. It is likely that many OEMs that adapter MS-DOS used their own labels like Tandy.

IBM 2.1 is not used for IBM PC-DOS 2.1, IBM 2.0 is the OEM string.
 
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Don't get me started on what a piece of unspeakableness the scheme of Windows 95 rewriting the boot sector was.

On more than one occasion, I got calls for help from people who could no longer read their floppies after using them under 95--the rewrite of the boot sector had failed and Windows had no bail-out psoition. "Gee, I clobbered the boot sector of your perfectly readable floppy and now you get a "General Failure" when you try to read it? Tough noogies, chum."

I advised people to delete the volume-tracking driver from their Windows SYSTEM directory--or to enable write-protect on any diskette that Windows was to read.

BTW, that's not a FAT ID, but rather Vendor Volume Identifier. Stupid of MS to clobber it.
 
Glancing at some disk images I recently archived:

PSA 1.04 (AT&T 6300 disk image)
T V3.20 (DBASE IV SE disk)
ALF 3.0 (DOOM disk)
GEOWORKS (Geoworks, obviously)
PSA 1.05 (Kaypro 2000 720k 3.5" disk)
TANDY2.1 (Tandy dos boot disk)
IBM 6.0 (IBM PC DOS 6.1)
PCFormat (pctools)
Wang 2.0 (Wang DOS)
NFORMAT! (My Personal favorite!!! :D:D:D )

And Win9x writing to the boot sector of a 360k disk in a 1.2mb drive could possibly render it unreadable in a normal 360k drive. Worse than a boot sector virus!
 
I think MSDOS2.0 / MSDOS2.1 / MSDOS4.1 must be user made ID.


Norton (Norton Commander 1.0 / Norton Utility 4.0)
IBM JDNA (DVORAK'S Guide)
WORDSTAR (American Heritage Dictionary for Windows)
ALF 2.0
PSA 3.1
PSA 3.2
IBM 10.1 (OS/2, Star Trek V)
IBM 10.2 (OS/2, Conan The Cimmerican)
IBM 20.0 (OS/2, Patriot)
TITUS 90 (Dark Century)
QDR 3.3 (Upstate IBM-PC User's Group Disk)
ITT 2.11 (Master Ninja)
TLC DSK (A lot of Educational software from The Learning Company)
688AS EA (688 Attack Sub)
INDY 500 (Indianapolis 500)
NECIS3.3 (Jeopardy 1st + 2nd + Sports Edition by Gametek, Wheel of Fortune 1st + 2nd + 3rd Edition by Gametek)
DOSV2.11 (Captain Comic)
S.BERMAN (Wolfenstein 3-D 1.4 by GT) -- ON-SYSTEM DISKETTE IN DRIVE FORCE HARD DISK BOOT COPYRIGHT (C) 1990 STEWART BERMAN
KME 3.1 (Wheel of Fortune Second Edition by ShareData)
Vadem211 (Pro Tennis Tour)
TriGem1.1 (World Class Leader Board CGA)
COMPAQ (MS-DOS COMPAQ OEM)
NEC 2.00 (PC-9801 MS-DOS)
Olivetti (MS-DOS 2.11 Olivetti OEM / Menace)
IBMMS4.0 (Vaxine)
TAN 2.0 (The Hulk, Spiider Man)
EPS 2.11 (Space Academy)
SU25 5-1 (Stormovik: SU-25 Soviet Attack Fighter)
C ZDS3.3 (Solitaire Journey)
MSDOS4.0
DOS BOOT (Sleeping God)
Falcon (Skyfox II)
IBM 4.01 (SimAnt / SimCity)
SN 3.0 (Special Forces)
MSC 3.1 (Heroes of the Lance)
softeam4 (Keep the Thief)
LHX ONE (LHX Attack Chopper -- Disk 1)
LHX TWO (LHX Attack Chopper -- Disk 2)
 
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MSDOS2.0
MSDOS2.1
MSDOS3.0
MSDOS3.1
MSDOS4.1

They must be fake.
 
MSDOS 2.0 is used extensively with Japanese PC98 (8x1024) systems. Even though DOS has gone through many updates, the system ID remains the same.
 
MS-DOS 4.0x uses "IBM 4.0" since it was IBM who actually did most of the work while Microsoft was busy with their multitasking MS-DOS 4.0 project which only saw limited European release.

And can usually tell when Windows 9x has overwritten a disk's boot sector when it also changes the volume label to "Av" (including a lowercase character that is normally impossible) and attempting to change it using regular MS/PC-DOS results in an error.
 
vwestlife said:
And can usually tell when Windows 9x has overwritten a disk's boot sector when it also changes the volume label to "Av" (including a lowercase character that is normally impossible) and attempting to change it using regular MS/PC-DOS results in an error.
Click to expand...
That's a side effect of VFN long file names.
They are stored as directory entries with "Volume label" attribute set, so non-LFN-aware software tends to display them as the volume label.
 
pre-5.0 DR DOS versions use "DIGITAL ".
Paragon PTS-DOS uses "Paragon!"
PhysTechSoft PTS-DOS uses "PTSDOS60"
 
Ok, being a floppy manager somewhere I do happen to know a thing or two about this.

Great Hierophant said:
?????IHC - Windows 9x (usually indicates the disk's FAT is not original)
Click to expand...

Nothing to do with FAT per se, it's just a local modification typically coupled with last access timestamps (AT) embedded in a medium's root directory. The rumor has it that the last 3 letters stand for "CHICAGO" spelled backwards, which is the codename for the earliest Win95 release. Not sure why it spanned beyond Win95, though. Also, this behavior is not limited to Win9x alone and is present in at least all of NT-based OSs from 3.51 (presumably) to 5.1. I've had some of my dumps modified by WinXP exactly the same way. The bottomline is, this will eventually happen in pretty much any Windows version as of 1995 if a disk is not write-protected. While it may take some time for OEM ID to change (seems to depend on multiple disk access or scanning) the AT will stick to the root directory instantly on file access. A simple file copy procedure is enough to make it happen. At first only executable (.EXE, .COM) and 30kb+ file entries are targeted, but eventually all of them will meet the same fate. Again, depends on what you do.

Great Hierophant said:
WINIMAGE (you know the image is not original if this is present)
Click to expand...

There are 2 instances to that, either an image is self-made via file injection (in which case a volume label is usually missing) or only the boot record has been replaced by WinImage, which is arguably the vice of older versions. Everything else should be intact, from FAT tables down to last sectors.

Ok, I've searched our entire dump collection for some of the earlier mentioned OEM IDs (and more) and here is what I got:

CH-FOR15: Inca (German version),
CH-FOR16: 4th & Inches
CH-FOR18: Eye of the Beholder 3 (German), Fantasy Empires (v1.1 German),
CMAST2.0: Sam & Max Hit the Road
IBM 20.0: Silverball Plus 2 v1.0 (disk 1), V for Victory: Market Garden, V for Victory: Velikiye Luki, System Shock (vB3.0S, disk 2)
IBMMS3.2: Aaaargh, Hardball 2, Knight Games, Laser Surgeon, Night Hunter, Rockford the Arcade Game, Shogun, The Amazing Spiderman, Roadwar 2000 & Roadwar Europa & Wargame Construction Set (Bonus Edition compilation),
IBMMS3.3: Monty Python's Flying Circus
IBMMS4.0: The Games '92: Espana, Mig-29 Fulcrum (disk 2), Supaplex, Vaxine
NECIS3.3: Jeopardy (1st, 2nd edition and Sports Edition), Space Quest 5: The Next Mutation (disk 1), Wayne Gretzky Hockey 2, Wheel of Fortune New Second Edition
ProCopy: Adventure Math, Commander Keen 6: Aliens Ate my Babysitter (v1.4), Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold (v2.1 registered), Blake Stone: Planet Strike (v1.0), Hocus Pocus (v1.1), Spear of Destiny (v1.0), Spear of Destiny Mission 2: Return to Danger (addon), Spear of Destiny Mission 3: Ultimate Challenge (addon)
PSA 3.1: SimCity Graphics Set 1 (addon)
PSA 3.2: Eye of Horus, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Hostage: Rescue Mission, Willow (disk 2), Steel Thunder, Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders (enhanced version)
StupnDOS: Space Crusade (StupenDOS)
T V2.11: Mega Man (TOSHIBA V2.21)
VGACPY45: Ishar 2 (Spanish version)
VGACPY46: Commander Keen: Keen Dreams (Softdisk, shareware)
VGACP600: Strike Commander and Strike Commander: Tactical Operations (addon)
VGACP625: Syndicate (disk 4 and 5)
WYTRON: Front Lines, Transport Tycoon (German version)
XTF-BOOT: Cadaver, Comanche (disk3), Das Schwarze Auge: Die Schicksalsklinge, Merchant Prince aka Machiavelli the Prince, Operation Crusader (disk 2), World War II: Battles of the South Pacific (disk 1)
XTREEWIN: Patriot
ZDS3.3: Alphawaves, Death Knights of Krynn, Dick Tracy: The Crime-Solving Adventure, Solitaire's Journey

That's all for now. Hope it was helpful.
 
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