# Solved: DOS memory management question



## mjf10025 (Oct 29, 2008)

I'm running dBASE III+ under MS-DOS 6.22 on a windowless Pentium II with 1 Gb RAM & a fairly empty 20 Gb harddrive. Lately, when I index files (avg size about 100 KB, max size 4 MB), I occ get the following error message:
internal error: EVAL work area overflow
internal error: Illegal opcode 2291191126899 1191126900
The computer will be frozen at this point; I have to reboot. Is this something I can fix by changing the config.sys settings? I don't recall much at all about memory management. When I run a utility called Checkit, it says I have 638 K base memory with 402 K available; "-1K" of extended memory with 0 K available; and "no EMS driver" for expanded memory. I'm not running a RAM disc/SMARTDRIVE. I'm running the same software & data on three similar computers & have the same problem on all three, and I've scanned the hard drives for errors, so I don't think it's a faulty hardware problem. Any ideas??


----------



## leroys1000 (Aug 16, 2007)

Try adding this to the config.sys file.
device=c:doshimem.sys


----------



## mjf10025 (Oct 29, 2008)

The first 4 times I tried to post this question, I reached a page saying something like "The page you're trying to reach is unavailable; you can try going to the home page, etc." Now I see that each of those efforts actually did post a copy of my question! Embarrassing!! Don't know how to delete the four redundant copies. [Is there a way?]

Thanks for taking a stab at this, Leroys1000. I actually do have DOS in the high memory area, though.

Here's how the sentence describing memory allocation reads in what I thought was the only saved copy of my post: "When I run Mem, it says I have 638 K conventional memory, 119 K upper, 65,413 K extended, no EMS driver for expanded memory; MS-DOS is in HMA."

Since I have much more than 64 MB of RAM, is there something extra I have to do to let MS-DOS or DBASE know about it?


----------



## leroys1000 (Aug 16, 2007)

This should help.
Config.sys.
You probably don't want to use the NOEMS command,as it disables
extended memory.


----------



## mjf10025 (Oct 29, 2008)

Thanks, leroys1000, for the link. Looks like a good review. I'll see if I find something there that fixes my problem.


----------

