Important Notice

The pages on this site contain documentation for very old MS-DOS software, purely for historical purposes. If you're looking for up-to-date documentation, particularly for programming, you should not rely on the information found here, as it will be woefully out of date.

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     Functions 1Bh and 1Ch are identical except that 1Bh only gets
     information on the default drive.
 
     The media ID byte has the following meanings:
 
     Byte     Meaning
 
     0F0h     3.5-inch double-sided, 18 sectors or "other"
     0F8h     fixed disk
     0F9h     5.25-inch double-sided, 15 sectors
              or 3.5-inch double-sided, 9 sectors
     0FCh     5.25-inch single-sided, 9 sectors
     0FDh     5.25-inch double-sided, 9 sectors
     0FEh     5.25-inch single-sided, 8 sectors
     0FFh     5.25-inch double-sided, 8 sectors
 
     The address returned in DS:BX points only to a copy of the media
     ID byte from the disk's FAT; the memory above that address cannot
     be assumed to contain the FAT or any other useful information. If
     direct access to the FAT is required, use Int 25h to read it into
     memory.
                                    -♦-