FAQ = http://forum.driverpacks.net/viewtopic.php?id=2461

Randronoth

Thx for yr prompt reply.

..and how stupid of me: When I extracted yr original Mass DriverPack, I wound up with a subdirectory under which I found the drivers and the .INI file. So when I compressed everything again, I did that including the new subdirectory. What I should have done is to just compress the drivers and the .ini file.

yes...

No it doesn't neccessarily make it a Third Party DP.
You have created a mass storage "lite" pack as long as you don't change the DP_MassStorage_wnt5_x86-32_ part of the file name. This way it is still a mass storage pack
make sure to  increment the number following the name by one. so it is the same name but a higher version number
DriverPacks BASE will see the mass with the highest number as the newest version available and use it.

yes and no; 

Yes, true, mass storage drivers in a third party pack will not be useful for finding a HDD to install windows. (the f6 function)
Mass storage text mode drivers will not be added from a third party pack.
Only the main mass storage pack is added to text mode.
---BartePE uses Mass-Storage textmode drivers.---
The main pack is editable, with a little instruction / help from us. Mass is one of the hardest packs to edit correctly.
however trimming it down is a lot easier than adding to it...

No, false, if you just need a mass storage driver for an external drive (not your primary boot drive) then you could use a third party driverpack.

yes as long as you don't break the naming convention, or the .INI format, then this is a true statement.

..and how stupid of me: When I extracted yr original Mass DriverPack, I wound up with a subdirectory under which I found the drivers and the .ini file. So when I compressed everything again, I did that including the new subdirectory. What I should have done is to just compress the drivers and the .ini file.

One more question: when I throw out the Mass drivers that I don't need, does that make the skimmed down pack a 3rd party Pack? If so I have 2 further questions:

1. I seem to have read somewhere that a 3rd party driver pack cannot contain Mass Storage Drivers. True?
2. A scaled down version of the original Mass Driver Pack is functionally comparable to to the original pack - just that it has fewer drivers in it. One would think that it should behave just like your original Mass pack. True?

randronoth

also note directions for the third party packs dont apply to mass or any other official pack.

In 7zip, we use ULTRA compression, LZMA, 256 wordlength and COMPACT.
I read somewhere that not using COMPACT can be an issue with repacked DriverPacks.

Oh...
let's write about how I edit mass.

I let 7zip unpack it .. so it creates a new folder wich has the name of the PACK..
Then I rename that folder by changing the last number to a higher number.
An example, 801 (year/month) becomes 8011 (year/month/revision).
And if it was 8011 to begin with it would change to 8012.
After that you do the edits and pruning in that new folder.
And then you select the D folder and INI file, and rightclick to use 7zip on selection.
It will automatically suggest the name of the folder, which was already renamed to higher version..
Ultra/LZMA/256/compact.
(look at RAM usage.. The new version of 7zip is not going to let you use almost two Giga while packing it up.. )Viola..

This is what I have done so far: Taking DP_MassStorage_wnt5_x86-32_801.7z as a base I threw out all the drivers that I didn't require, reducing the pack to just the I3, M3, N, P, & P6 drivers. I also edited the corresponding DP_MassStorage....ini to include only above drivers. Next I put everything into an archive, using 7Zip and Bâshrat's 3rd Party DriverPacks Tutorial. No luck however when running DPs_BASE.exe. I get an error "no settings file found for DriverPack MassStorage - the file .......DPMtmp\DriverPck_MassStorage...ini could not be found.

I'm not even sure that my path would turn out to be the correct one, maybe my idea isn't so great to begin with, but I compared the original DriverPack - which works - with my shortened one and couldn't see any technical difference. So just to experiment, I took the original DriverPack, unzipped it, deleted the original .7z file and created the origianl archive again (with 7Zip). I tried this new 7z file which is exactly the same as the original one - and get the same error message.

Do U guys know what's going on?

randronoth