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FormatMaster Version 1.02 A Floppy Disk Formatter from New-Ware (tm) ┌─────────┐ ┌─────┴───┐ │ MEMBER ───│ │ │──────────────── │ ┌──────┴──┐ │ Association of │ │ ├──┘ Shareware └──┤ ■ │ Professionals ──────│ ║ │─────────────────── └────╨────┘ Copyright 1988 - All Rights Reserved. What is FormatMaster? --------------------- FormatMaster is a full-featured floppy diskette format utility. It achieves its utility through a menu driven interface and provides the means to easily and quickly format 5 1/4" (360KB or 1.2MB) or 3 1/2" (720KB or 1.4MB) diskettes. In addition, it will transfer system files to a freshly formatted disk and add a user provided volume label. Formatting speed is twice that of the normal DOS format utility. FormatMaster License Terms -------------------------- FormatMaster, and all supporting/attendant documentation and utility software, is copyrighted by New-Ware (John J. Newlin), all rights reserved (1988). It is licensed specifically for evaluation use by all IBM PC/XT/AT and compatible owners and operators as Shareware. As Shareware, FormatMaster may be freely copied by individuals, Computer User Groups, and Bulletin Board System (BBS) operators for transmission to others for evaluation. FormatMaster is not free. It is a fully mature software product distributed via the Shareware method by New-Ware, which is owned and operated by John J. Newlin. No charge of any amount may be made by anyone for FormatMaster without the express permission of New-Ware, with the following exceptions: Bona fide organized computer user groups and/or clubs may charge a nominal copying and handling fee for the purpose of distributing Shareware copies of FormatMaster to their members. BBS operators who operate on a subscription basis may include copies of FormatMaster on their boards for downloading by board subscribers. COMPUTER DISK VENDORS AND SIMILAR DISTRIBUTORS OF PUBLIC DOMAIN AND SHAREWARE WHO PROFIT FROM THE DISTRIBUTION OF DISKS ARE SPECIFICALLY PROHIBITED FROM DISTRIBUTING FormatMaster WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM NEW-WARE. All others are encouraged to make copies of FormatMaster and pass them along (without charge) to their friends, associates, or acquaintances for the purposes of evaluation. Warranty --------- FormatMaster is provided AS IS without any warranty, either expressed or implied, including but not limited to fitness for a particular pupose. Distribution Files ------------------ The following files are included in the Shareware distribution package: FMTMAS.EXE FMTMAS.DOC PATHINFO.TXT QUICK.RUN Product Support --------------- I support my software! Unfortunately, I cannot provide the use of toll free access to telephone support, but I will respond to phone calls, letters, telegrams, Telexes, BBS messages, or carrier pidgeon drops. The author/proprietor (John Newlin) can be reached at one of the following three telephone numbers: (619) 455-6225 [1700-2300 PST] - Voice (619) 455-5226 [24 hours/day] - Data I can also be reached via the IBMNET or EASYPLEX on CIS (ppn 71535,665) and GENIE (JNEWLIN). Credits ------- Computer software products, whether Shareware or Commercial, just don't happen. It takes skilled, dedicated people to design, code, and test a program. As skilled as I like to think I am, it is not possible for me to offer a non-trivial product that does not contain bugs and design flaws. The only way, then, for a New-Ware program to mature into a polished, useful product is through the invaluable assistance of people who care. Thanks to Tom Kellen for his unflagging loyalty and stubborn refusal to let this programmer off the hook when he knew something is amiss and needed fixing. Thanks to Mike (Dr. FileFinder) Callahan for his vigorous support of Shareware products and authors. Thanks to Edward Mendelson for his good ideas. Thanks to Kurt Diesch, fellow ASP member, for saving me some valuable time by providing some needed information. Last, but certainly not least, thanks to Sammy Mitchell for QEdit. Version History --------------- 1.00 - Initial release. 1.01 - Fixed bug caused by not properly storing boot sector data with FMTMAS.EXE. 1.02 - Fixed bug that prevented system transfer from one floppy disk to another. 1.03 - Fixed bug in formatting 720K floppy disks in a 1.44M drive. Registering FormatMaster ------------------------ FormatMaster is a Shareware product. It is NOT public domain software. New-Ware urges those who find FormatMaster to be of sufficient utility so as to use it on a regular basis to remit a registration fee of $20.00. Registered users will receive a copy of FormatMaster on disk that has the opening Shareware information screen removed. In addition, registered users will have access the Shareware Products BBS for retrieval of all future registered versions of FormatMaster. There are three ways to register FormatMaster - by mail, phone, or BBS. Selecting the Registration item from the program main menu will result in a pop-up window that will prompt you for all the necessary information and then print the form for mailing. Registering FormatMaster is easy and may be accomplished in one of four ways: (1) Mail a check or money order in the amount of $20.00 payable to New-Ware. California residents PLEASE!! add 6% sales tax ($21.20 total). (2) Mail your Visa or Mastercard number, card expiration date, phone number, and signature to New-Ware. Be sure that the name you send is the exact name that appears on your credit card. (3) Call (619) 455-6225 and leave your Visa or MasterCard number, expiration date, name and address, and phone number. (4) Call the Shareware Products BBS and register on line. The number is (619) 455-5226, N/8/1, 1200/2400 baud. Your credit card can usually be validated within one day and this is the quickest way to get a copy of the registered version. The mailing address for registrations is: New-Ware 4060-228 Rosenda Ct. San Diego, CA 92122 FormatMaster will be shipped first class mail with two days of receipt of a registration. If you are using Visa or Mastercard for payment, please ensure that you include the EXACT NAME as it appears on the card, the full card number (i.e., 1234 5678 0000 1234), the card expiration date, and your phone number. Visa or Mastercard only, please. No other credit cards can be accepted. If you call the voice number, ((619) 455-6225 to register, you may get an answering machine. Have your card or the form printed by FormatMaster ready so you can leave your registration information quickly and accurately. Registration By BBS ------------------- New-Ware has opened a Shareware Products BBS. This BBS contains exclusively Shareware products and is restricted to downloads only. You may register FormatMaster by calling the BBS at (619) 455-5226 (1200/2400 baud,N,8,1). When you are connected, select the Registration questionnaire from the main menu. Be sure to have your credit card ready. You will be prompted for all the pertinent information. As soon as your card number is validated (usually in 1 day), FormatMaster will be shipped to you and you will receive a security level that will permit you to download the registered version. Not only will this hasten your receipt of FormatMaster, but it gives you access to future upgrades. The BBS operates 24 hours per day, seven days per week. Why register FormatMaster? -------------------------- Shareware is a unique concept. It benefits the user by providing high quality, low cost software that can be thoroughly evaluated before purchase. If you like the product and you decide to use it, then you should register. Shareware is not like public domain software--it is protected by federal copyright laws and it is not free. More importantly, the only way to encourage Shareware authors to continue to provide Shareware products is by paying them for the products that you use. Users who register FormatMaster will receive a copy of the registered version of the program and will have access to future registered versions through New-Ware's Shareware Products BBS. Getting Up and Running ---------------------- Here are the four things you MUST do to get the program to a fully functional state: (1) Make sure that the executable file FMTMAS.EXE is in the active directory when you run it. (2) Select "Set Drive Table" from the main menu and set up each of your floppy diskette drives with the proper parameters. Save the changes to disk. (3) Place a formatted diskette in drive A. This should be a system disk if you wish to format system disks. Then select "Initialize Boot Sector". This keeps me out of trouble with Microsoft/IBM and allows you to customize the program for the DOS you are using. (4) Make sure that the DOS utility SYS.COM is in a directory that is listed in your path string if you intend to transfer system files to a newly formatted diskette. See the file PATHINFO.TXT for more information on the DOS PATH command. The Drive Table Settings ------------------------ FormatMaster needs to know how the floppy disk drives in your system are configured. Specifically, it is important to know the size (3 1/2" or 5 1/4") of each drive and whether or not that drive is dual density. Because there are so many configuration variants among PCs and ATs (and clones), it may not necessarily be true that floppy drives are sequentially designated from A to D. In fact, there are some systems with add on 3 1/2" drives (and attendant drivers), that are addressed as a letter that is higher than the hard drive letters in the system. For this reason, you need to use FormatMaster's drive table set-up feature to assure proper performance. MAKE SURE YOU DO THIS PROPERLY, OR THE PROGRAM WILL NOT FUNCTION AS DESIGNED. Floppy disk controllers can address up to four drives and access the available drives through numeric codes that can range from 0 to 3. For example, just about every PC type machine in the world will have a DOS drive A that is accessed by the BIOS as drive 0. Normally, DOS drive B will be accessed as drive 1, and so on. It should be clear by now that there are two ways of addressing system drives. You communicate with DOS about system drives using "logical" drive designators, which are alphabetic letters ranging from "A" to "Z". DOS in turn calls the machine ROM BIOS to perform low level disk operations (read, write, format, etc.) and uses "physical" drive designators that are numbers. FormatMaster uses a user-defined drive table that keeps track of four important items - the DOS logical drive designator, the BIOS physical drive number, the size of the drive, and whether the drive is a dual or single density drive. A dual density drive is one that supports both normal and high density diskettes. For example, the AT comes with a dual-density 5 1/4" drive as DOS drive A. It will format either normal (360KB) or high-density (1.2MB) floppies. Some systems now have dual density 3 1/2" drives which format either 720KB or 1.4MB diskettes. Configuring FormatMaster's drive table is relatively simple. You select one of the four drives from the menu and then answer the following prompts. You will be prompted for the DOS logical drive letter, the size of disk the drive supports, and whether or not the drive is dual-density. Once you have made the settings appropriate for your system, you can save them permanently to disk. Just make sure that FMTMAS.EXE is in the active directory. If in doubt about which logical drive matches which physical drive, you can experiment. Don't worry, FormatMaster will not attempt to format a hard disk. It only calls the floppy disk BIOS and **never** uses the hard disk format designator codes (80h and 81h). You may want to deselect the drive letters that are associated with drives not in your system. You can do this by selecting the drive letter you wish to deselect from the menu and entering a "0" when prompted for the drive size. By doing this, the "Format a Disk" menu will only show the drives in the system that you have selected. Here are the drive table default settings for the Shareware distribution version: Physical Logical Size Density -------- ------- ---- ------- 0 A 5 Dual 1 B 3 Single 2 C 5 Single 3 D 5 Single Storing the Boot Sector ----------------------- When a disk is formatted, the formatting program must write a boot sector to the disk. In order to maximize compatibility with all systems, FormatMaster will read the boot sector from a formatted disk and store it in the program file. Simply place a formatted diskette in drive A and select "Initialize Boot Sector" from the main menu. Again, be sure that FormatMaster is in the active directory. FormatMaster will copy the boot sector from the floppy in drive A and copy it into a segment of the program file (FMTMAS.EXE). You only need do this once for a given system. If you desire to format system diskettes, be sure to use a copy of your DOS system disk when performing this operation. A message warning you that the boot sector has not been stored will be displayed on the screen until you initialize. Formatting System Diskettes --------------------------- System diskettes differ from data diskettes in that they contain a slightly different boot sector and they must contain the two DOS system files as well as a compatible copy of COMMAND.COM. FormatMaster will transfer system files to a freshly formatted disk, but you must insure that it can access the DOS utility SYS.COM. You do this by insuring that the file SYS.COM is in a directory whose name appears in your DOS path statement. For example, if your DOS files are in a directory named C:\DOS, then the directory path name C:\DOS **must** appear in your path command. Please read the file PATHINFO.TXT for a more detailed explanation of the DOS PATH command feature. FormatMaster invokes SYS.COM to transfer system files to the newly formatted disk. Operating FormatMaster ---------------------- FormatMaster is menu driven and therefore quite easy to use. The main menu contains the following selections: Format a Disk Initialize Boot Sector Set Drive Table Enter DOS Transfer System = OFF Add Volume Label = OFF Cycle Format = OFF Double Cycle = OFF Rapid Format = OFF Warning Message = ON Registration Form Quit to DOS @ Configure FMTMAS.EXE Menu items are selected either by moving the cursor bar to the desired item and pressing return (MOUSE LEFT BUTTON) or by pressing the key corresponding the the highlighted character. Two of the items above are toggles, e.g., they are either on or off and each time you select one, it is toggled to the opposite setting. If "Transfer System = ON" is set, then FormatMaster will invoke SYS.COM to transfer system files to the freshly formatted disk. Make sure that COMMAND.COM is not a hidden file. If "Add Volume Label = ON", then you will be prompted to enter a disk label when the formatting is complete. All menu items are augmented by a help line that is written between the top two double lines of the screen. "Initialize Boot Sector" will read the boot sector of a diskette in drive A and write it to an area in FMTMAS.EXE. This is the FIRST THING that you should do when operating FormatMaster. Place a disk formatted by your DOS (preferably, but not necessarily a system disk) in drive A and select this item from the menu. Once this is accomplished, it need not be done again unless you change DOS versions. "Set Drive Table" will bring up a menu that allows setting the operating parameters for each of up to four drives. An additional menu item, "Save To Disk @", is available to permanently save the parameters to the program file. Selecting an item from this menu will result in a series of prompts that ask for logical DOS drive letter, disk drive size, and drive density. "Enter DOS" provides the means to "shell out" to the DOS level to perform whatever operations desired. Entering the command "EXIT" from the DOS level will return you to the FormatMaster main menu. The "Transfer System" toggle will determine whether or not FormatMaster transfers the DOS system files to the newly formatted disk. You must be operating FormatMaster from a boot disk that contains the two system files, i.e., IBMIO.SYS and IBMDOS.SYS, COMMAND.COM, and SYS.COM. SYS.COM must be in a directory whose path name is part of your PATH= string. If the system files are not transferred when this toggle is on, double check the location of SYS.COM and that its host directory does indeed appear in your PATH= string. "Add Volume Label" determines whether you will be prompted for a disk label at the end of the format. If it is ON, entry of a valid disk label will result in that label being written to the formatted disk. The "Cycle Format = OFF" option allows you to set FormatMaster to perform repetitive formatting on any ONE of your system floppy drives with just a pause to change disks at the end of each cycle. If the "Add Volume Label" toggle is ON, FormatMaster will prompt you for the disk label at the end of formatting the first disk and will automatically add that label to all disks formatted thereafter. The system will be transferred to each disk if the "Transfer System" toggle is ON. "Double Cycle = OFF", when toggled to on, provides a means to rapidly format disks in TWO of your system floppy drives. Instead of the normal Format Drive submenu, you will be prompted to enter two items for each drive. The first is the DOS drive letter designator. Make sure that this is a drive letter that you have set up in the "Set Drive Table" option. If your drive table setting indicates that the selected drive is a dual-density drive, you will be asked if you are going to be formatting high density diskettes in the drive. In this manner, any two drives in your system may be used for the cyclic formatting. After entering the pertinent information, a beep will sound and you will be instructed to ready the selected drives for formatting. As soon as you press any key, the formatting of the two drives will start. "Rapid Format" provides a way to very quickly reformat disks that are already formatted. If you have a batch of formatted disks that you desire to re-initialize, use this option. Instead of formatting the disk track by track, as is necessary in the case of a fresh, unformatted diskette, FormatMaster will skip the track formatting and re-initialize the boot, FAT, and directory sectors. The disk will then be just as if you did a full track by track format. If you use this feature in conjuntion with "Double Cycle = ON", things tend to go rather rapidly, so there is an approximate 8 second delay to allow time for swapping disks. "Warning Message = ON" is a toggle that controls whether or not you will be warned if the disk you are about to format possible contains data. Set this to off if you desire to skip this warning. If you have the "Transfer System" and/or "Add Volume Label" toggles on, FormatMaster will act accordingly for each drive being formatted. If the "Add Volume Label" toggle is on, you will be prompted to enter the label at the end of formatting the first drive. From then on, the label you enter will be added to each disk formatted. There is NO PAUSE between drives, so be sure to swap a fresh unformatted disk for a formatted one in the drive that is idle while the other is formatting. This method assures the fastest possible disk formatting on a normal PC/AT system. A beep will sound as the formatting is completed on one drive and FromatMaster switches to the other. Pressing the ESC key during a dual drive format operation will stop the formatting as soon as the drive that is currently being formatted is complete. "Registration Form" brings up a window that will prompt you for the entry of registration information and then will create a registration form on your printer that can be mailed to New-Ware. "Quit To DOS" terminates FormatMaster and returns you to the DOS level. Alt-X will also terminate the program. "Format a Disk" is the main routine of the program. This selection brings up a menu containing the system drives as you defined them using "Set Drive Table". Selection of a drive for format will bring up the formatting window. You will be prompted to insert a disk in the designated drive and to press return when ready to format. Note that information pertaining to the current status of the various toggles appears on the help line at the top of the screen. If the disk you have placed in the designated drive is already formatted, it may contain valuable data and FormatMaster will warn you of this condition and give you three options. You may <I>gnore the warning and continue the format, <A>bort the format altogether, or <V>iew a directory listing of the target diskette. If you opt to <V>iew, the screen will clear and a directory listing of the diskette will be displayed. Pressing any key will return to the format display and you will get the original three-option prompt. If you proceed, FormatMaster will check the density entry in the drive table and if the drive is a dual density drive, you will be asked whether you desire to format a high density diskette. After this query, FormatMaster will format the disk, updating a track counter as it formats each track. When the formatting is complete, if the "Transfer System" toggle is ON, the system files will be transferred and if the "Add Volume Label" toggle is on, a window will pop up prompting you to enter the desired label. You will then get an opportunity to format another disk in the same drive. If the "Cycle Format" toggle is on, a beep will sound and you will have the option to insert a fresh disk in the operable drive and continue or to stop the formatting. A disk counter is incremented and displayed during cyclic formatting to help you keep track of the number of disks formatted. To permanently configure FormatMaster, use the "@ Configure FMTMAS.EXE" option. All the current toggle settings will be saved to disk so that each time you execute the program, it will start up with the toggles as set when you invoked this option. In addition, if you have started FormatMaster with an M (or m) on the command line, the monochrome (composite) monitor color settings will also be saved so that it will not be necessary to use the M on the command line. The ESCAPE Key -------------- The ESC key can be used to exit from just about any menu or operation. It will also abort formatting with an error message. Error Handling -------------- I have tried to make FormatMaster as bullet proof as possible and have provided for an Error Box to pop up in the event a critical error is encountered. The operation currently in progress will usually be terminated if an error occurs. Technical Notes --------------- FormatMaster is written in Turbo Pascal 4.0 and makes generous use of TurboPower Software's excellent Turbo Pro 4.0 package. All formatting is done through INT 13h ROM BIOS calls based upon parameters in the drive table as provided by the user. It is twice as fast as the DOS format program because it does not invoke the BIOS VERIFY routine during format. The BIOS VERIFY does not perform a read/write type of verification and therefore is not needed if one is using decent quality diskettes. The program was developed on an AST Premium/286 equipped with one dual density 5 1/4" disk drive and an EGA monitor running MSDOS 3.2. The program was tested on a Leading Edge model "M" (XT clone) equipped with one single density 5 1/4" disk drive and a CGA monitor running PC DOS 3.1, an ACER 710 (XT clone) equipped with a single density 5 1/4" , a single density 3 1/2", and a monochrome monitor running MSDOS 3.2 (also tested running under DOS 2.11), and the AST Premium 286. Without direct access to a 1.4M 3 1/2" drive, I have had to depend upon beta test support. About New-Ware -------------- New-Ware is the registered business name of an entity owned and operated by John J. Newlin (me). I am a systems engineer, I hold degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science, and I am a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). My other Shareware products SCOUT and ArcMaster. SCOUT is a memory resident file/directory/disk management system that offers a powerful set of commands for manipulating PC system resources. ArcMaster is a semi-automated ARChive file manager that provides an intuitive, menu driven user interface for PKARC/PKXARC, ARCA/ARC-E, and Vern Buerg's LIST. PLEASE SUPPORT SHAREWARE AUTHORS!! Register the programs you use regularly with their authors. Monitor Problems ---------------- Many laptop portables and those machines with a "composite" monitor can trick programs like FormatMaster into thinking that there is a fully functional Color Graphics Adaptor (CGA) on board. If you load the program and the cursor bar is not visible or the display looks strange, quit the program using Alt-X and reload it with an "M" (either case) on the command line. Example: FMTMAS m This will force FormatMaster to use a set of monochrome attributes that should work fine on LapTops and composite monitors. Mouse Support ------------- FormatMaster supports all the popular Mouse systems. The left button is used to enter a carriage return and the right button serves as an ESC key. NOTE: This documentation and all accompanying explanatory information/files is Copyright 1988 by New-Ware. All rights reserved.