PMAA from mono-saccharides????

[Kenneth Chan]

Can one make partially methylated aliditol acetate form
mono-sacchrides??
I'm currently working on a database of retention index and mass spectra
of PMAAs and would like to find a way to make PMAA standards form simple
sugars.
I've been using standard PMAA methods (NaOH/DMSO/MeI -> NaBD4 ->
C5H5N/Ac20), except instead of adding an excess of MeI, I only add
1-3eq.  But it don't work!!!

Any help would be great....  right now I'll settle for a reliable
retention index for PMAAs on a DB17

Thanks in advance

Ken