Shareware Super Platinum 8

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Text File | 1993-02-11 | 28.9 KB | 738 lines

SDI / WDI Diskette archiving, copying system by JDLove JDLove Shareware Software SDI / WDI The following files are included with release 3.3 of these utilities: DISKTYPE.EXE Determines diskette type. CDI.EXE Compare diskette information. RDI.EXE Read diskette information. SDI.EXE Save diskette information. WDI.EXE Write diskette information. WHATSNEW.33 Brief information on changes. MANUAL.DOC This manual. ORDER.DOC Registration information and order form. REGISTER.DOC Separate information about registration. FILE_ID.DIZ Used by BBS. SDI / WDI JDLSS CONTENTS 1. Introduction and general information.............. 4 2. DISKTYPE.EXE - Determine diskette type............ 7 3. CDI.EXE - Compare diskette information....... 9 4. RDI.EXE - Read diskette information.......... 11 5. SDI.EXE - Save diskette information.......... 13 6. WDI.EXE - Write diskette information......... 15 7. Registration A. Technical support............................. 17 B. Reporting problems............................ 17 C. Registration information...................... 18 D. Software license.............................. 19 SDI / WDI JDLSS -4- Introduction and general information Firstly, you should have gotten this software in a PKWare zip format. In addition, when you run PKUnzip(R) with the -t argument on the distribution file, my personal AV should appear at the bottom of the listing -- JDLSS - Danny Love. If you did not see this information, do not use the programs and contact me as listed below and be prepared to state where you obtained the file. If my AV information is not shown at the bottom of the file, then I cannot guarantee that someone hasn't tampered with the files! This family of programs has been under development for several years and represents the outcome of a personal need to be able to perform image copies of diskettes to a hard drive. These image copies can then be compressed with many of the popular compression programs to minimize the amount of drive space that they occupy. Multiple image copies can then be put onto tape or other mass storage media for later retrieval. Backup copies of distribution diskettes has always presented me with the problem of where in the world to keep all of these blooming diskettes. It is very desirable to be able to keep up with backup copies of these diskettes; however, diskettes are expensive and present fairly major problems to folks when it comes to keeping up with them. As a result many backup copies are either lost or reused later due to an absence of enough diskettes. As Murphy always indicates not long after one of these backup diskettes is used in this manner, there comes a need to retrieve the backup diskette and obviously it is no where to be found! Using a system like the one represented here, one can utilize tapes or other mass storage media to keep up with all of the backup diskettes without the diskettes. Also when you need a diskette, all that is required is to locate the image copy and then wait a minute or so for the Write Diskette Information program to restore the diskette to a form that is similar to the original. The only drawback to this system is that original diskettes that have been deliberately damaged to support some sort of wild copyright protection scheme will not be successfully backed up. This family of programs will tell you if there is some sort of problem with a diskette. SDI / WDI JDLSS -5- This system does not tie itself to MS-DOS formatted diskettes. It will backup any normal diskette that is one of the following formats: 360KB 5-1/4" Drive 320KB 360KB 1.2MB 5-1/4" Drive 320KB 360KB 1.2MB 720KB 3-1/2" Drive 720KB 1.44MB 3-1/2" Drive 720KB 1.44MB Single sided diskettes (160KB and 180KB) are not supported at this time. If there is a demand for this antiquated storage format, it may be included with a future release. It seems to me that I shouldn't even support the 320KB format. It was fairly easy to support therfore it is included. When restoring information to a diskette with Write Diskette Information, the user is expected to provide a diskette that has been formatted to the same state as the original diskette. At some time in the future, the automatic format capability may be added to this program. SDI / WDI JDLSS -6- Because these programs read CMOS configuration information, they should not be expected to function properly on a PC which is prior to the AT series. They have been tested on 286, 386 and 486 based systems with no worries. Although there is no hard check for MS-DOS version contained in these programs, it is strongly recommended that the user limit the use of these programs to those versions after MS-DOS 3.2. Extensive testing of these programs was performed under MS-DOS version 5.0. Free system memory is required for these utilities to function properly. The amount of required free memory is around 64KB. The program CDI.EXE will allocate all free memory for it's operation. Safeguards have been implemented with CDI.EXE to avoid grabbing the memory used by the transient portion of COMMAND.COM. When using CDI.EXE, the more free memory in the system, the less often diskette changes will be required. SDI / WDI JDLSS -7- DISKTYPE.EXE - Determine diskette type. SYNOPSIS disktype [d:] [ARGUMENTS] disktype -registration disktype -r disktype -h ARGUMENTS -snd -nologo -debug ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES READ SDIDEFAULT - specifies the default drive and parameters (Registered Version) set sdidefault=a:[ARGUMENTS] set sdidefault=b:[ARGUMENTS] DESCRIPTION disktype returns the diskette type as a string as follows: 320 KB -- 40 Tk 8 Sec 2 Hds 360 KB -- 40 Tk 9 Sec 2 Hds 1.2 MB -- 80 Tk 15 Sec 2 Hds 720 KB -- 80 Tk 9 Sec 2 Hds 1.44 MB -- 80 Tk 18 Sec 2 Hds The drive to test is either A: or B:. If no drive is specified, then the environment variable SDIDEFAULT is read to determine what the default drive is desired to be. If SDIDEFAULT is not configured or is an invalid drive then drive A: is used. Registered users may append to the drive letter specified in the environment varable a colon and hyphen (:-) or a color and slash (:/) followed by all desired default single letter parameters for the utilities. Where a parameter is not directly supported, the parameter will be ignored and no complaint will be displayed. If the argument -h is supplied, then the program will show a brief screen with information about the program. If the argument -s is supplied, then the program will immediately begin reading either the specified drive or the default drive to determine the diskette type. Without this argument, the program will prompt the user to place the diskette into the appropriate drive and then press any key (except <ESC> or ^C) to continue. SDI / WDI JDLSS -8- If the argument -nologo or -n is supplied, then the program will not display the author's banner. This is very useful when using this program in conjunction with .BAT files. By default, the banner is shown. (Registered version only) If the argument -debug is supplied, then the program will display information that is relevant to send to the author when making complaints about the behavior of the program. The type of information shown is primarily associated with the dynamic allocation of memory. The user should not expect this information to be formatted in a pretty fashion and as such it is not. Normally this information is not shown. Registered users may specify a shorthand version (-d). SDI / WDI JDLSS -9- CDI.EXE - Compare diskette information. SYNOPSIS cdi [d:] [d:] [ARGUMENTS] [filename[s]] cdi -registration cdi -r cdi -h ARGUMENTS -sitnd -nologo -debug ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES READ SDIDEFAULT - specifies the default drive and parameters (Registered Version) set sdidefault=a:[ARGUMENTS] set sdidefault=b:[ARGUMENTS] DESCRIPTION This utility compares the contents of a diskette to a file or another diskette. The program's logic will determine whether or not two diskettes were specified by how the arguments are provided. If single drive compares are desired, then the drive need only be specified once. If the default drive is to be compared to a file, then only the file's name need be entered. When diskettes are being compared to diskettes, the program assumes that the user may desire to compare multiple sets. When the current compare is complete, the user will be asked if additional comparing is desired. When comparing files to diskettes, multiple compares are handled by specifying multiple files. The files entered will be processed in the order that they are specified on the command line. If wildcards are used for specifying files, then the files will be processed in the order that they are found in each path specified. If the argument -h is supplied, then the program will show a brief screen with information about the program. If the argument -s is supplied, then the program will immediately begin reading either the specified drive or the default drive to determine the diskette type. Without this argument, the program will prompt the user to place the diskette into the appropriate drive and then press any key (except <ESC> or ^C) to continue. SDI / WDI JDLSS -10- If the argument -i is supplied, then the program will ignore diskette errors and continue processing the diskette. When a diskette error occurs, the program will show what type of error the BIOS detected along with where the error occurred. If the argument -t is supplied, then the program will show progress as Track XY Head Z instead of XY% completed. If the argument -nologo or -n is supplied, then the program will not display the author's banner. This is very useful when using this program in conjunction with .BAT files. By default, the banner is shown. (Registered version only) If the argument -debug is supplied, then the program will display information that is relevant to send to the author when making complaints about the behavior of the program. The type of information shown is primarily associated with the dynamic allocation of memory. The user should not expect this information to be formatted in a pretty fashion and as such it is not. Normally this information is not shown. Registered users may specify a shorthand version (-d). SDI / WDI JDLSS -11- RDI.EXE - Read diskette information. SYNOPSIS rdi [d:] [ARGUMENTS] rdi -registration rdi -r rdi -h ARGUMENTS -stnd -nologo -debug ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES READ SDIDEFAULT - specifies the default drive and parameters (Registered Version) set sdidefault=a:[ARGUMENTS] set sdidefault=b:[ARGUMENTS] DESCRIPTION This program reads all sectors of the default or specified diskette. If there are any problems with the diskette, then this program will report the track, head and sector along with the type of error encountered. If the argument -h is supplied, then the program will show a brief screen with information about the program. If the argument -s is supplied, then the program will immediately begin reading either the specified drive or the default drive to determine the diskette type. Without this argument, the program will prompt the user to place the diskette into the appropriate drive and then press any key (except <ESC> or ^C) to continue. If the argument -t is supplied, then the program will show progress as Track XY Head Z instead of XY% completed. If the argument -nologo or -n is supplied, then the program will not display the author's banner. This is very useful when using this program in conjunction with .BAT files. By default, the banner is shown. (Registered version only) SDI / WDI JDLSS -12- If the argument -debug is supplied, then the program will display information that is relevant to send to the author when making complaints about the behavior of the program. The type of information shown is primarily associated with the dynamic allocation of memory. The user should not expect this information to be formatted in a pretty fashion and as such it is not. Normally this information is not shown. Registered users may specify a shorthand version (-d). SDI / WDI JDLSS -13- SDI.EXE - Save diskette information. SYNOPSIS sdi [d:] [ARGUMENTS] filename[s] sdi -registration sdi -r sdi -h ARGUMENTS -sitnd -nologo -debug ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES READ SDIDEFAULT - specifies the default drive and parameters (Registered Version) set sdidefault=a:[ARGUMENTS] set sdidefault=b:[ARGUMENTS] DESCRIPTION This program copies the contents of either the default or specified drive to a file. The diskette contents can then be treated like a regular file. If multiple diskette images are desired during one session, then the user should specify all of the names that are desired to be created. The user will be prompted to enter the diskettes as it processes the files specified in the order that they were specified. If the user somehow manages to create all of the desired files prior to starting this program, then wildcards can be used to specify the filenames. Under this circumstance, all files specified will be overwritten with the diskette information. My touch program for MS-DOS will facilitate this type of operation. If the argument -h is supplied, then the program will show a brief screen with information about the program. If the argument -s is supplied, then the program will immediately begin reading either the specified drive or the default drive to determine the diskette type. Without this argument, the program will prompt the user to place the diskette into the appropriate drive and then press any key (except <ESC> or ^C) to continue. If the argument -i is supplied, then the program will ignore diskette errors and continue processing the diskette. When a diskette error occurs, the program will show what type of error the BIOS detected along with where the error occurred. SDI / WDI JDLSS -14- If the argument -t is supplied, then the program will show progress as Track XY Head Z instead of XY% completed. If the argument -nologo or -n is supplied, then the program will not display the author's banner. This is very useful when using this program in conjunction with .BAT files. By default, the banner is shown. (Registered version only) If the argument -debug is supplied, then the program will display information that is relevant to send to the author when making complaints about the behavior of the program. The type of information shown is primarily associated with the dynamic allocation of memory. The user should not expect this information to be formatted in a pretty fashion and as such it is not. Normally this information is not shown. Registered users may specify a shorthand version (-d). SDI / WDI JDLSS -15- WDI.EXE - Write diskette information. SYNOPSIS wdi [d:] [ARGUMENTS] filename[s] wdi -registration wdi -r wdi -h ARGUMENTS -svtnd -nologo -debug ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES READ SDIDEFAULT - specifies the default drive and parameters (Registered Version) set sdidefault=a:[ARGUMENTS] set sdidefault=b:[ARGUMENTS] DESCRIPTION This program copies a file created with SDI.EXE to a formatted diskette in either the default or specified drive. If multiple diskette images are desired during one session, then the user should specify all of the names that are desired to be created. The user will be prompted to enter the diskettes as it processes the files specified in the order that they were specified. If the user somehow manages to create all of the desired files prior to starting this program, then wildcards can be used to specify the filenames. Under this circumstance, all files specified will be overwritten with the diskette information. My touch program for MS-DOS will facilitate this type of operation. If multiple diskette images are desired to be restored during one session, then the user should specify all of the names that are to be restored. The user will be prompted to enter the diskettes as the program processes the files specified in the order that they were specified. If the user uses wildcards to specify the filenames, then the files will be processed in the order that they are found in the paths specified. If the argument -s is supplied, then the program will immediately begin reading either the specified drive or the default drive to determine the diskette type. Without this argument, the program will prompt the user to place the diskette into the appropriate drive and then press any key (except <ESC> or ^C) to continue. SDI / WDI JDLSS -16- If the argument -v is supplied, then the program will read the information that is written to the diskette and verify that the data was correctly written. All errors encountered will be flagged to the user. This mode will increase the amount of time required to write a diskette. This switch is off by default. If the argument -t is supplied, then the program will show progress as Track XY Head Z instead of XY% completed. If the argument -nologo or -n is supplied, then the program will not display the author's banner. This is very useful when using this program in conjunction with .BAT files. By default, the banner is shown. (Registered version only) If the argument -debug is supplied, then the program will display information that is relevant to send to the author when making complaints about the behavior of the program. The type of information shown is primarily associated with the dynamic allocation of memory. The user should not expect this information to be formatted in a pretty fashion and as such it is not. Normally this information is not shown. Registered users may specify a shorthand version (-d). SDI / WDI JDLSS -17- Registration Technical support If you have any further questions or comments about these utilities, contact: JDLove Rt 6 Box 459R Beaumont, Texas 77705 FICA - Resource BBS - 24 Hours Bill Isaacson - SYSOP (504) 634-5368 FICA - Resource Beaumont Brnch BBS - 24 Hours Danny Love - SYSOP (409) 796-1421 The Eagle's Nest BBS - 24 Hours Steve Elwart - SYSOP (601) 636-9788 The above is the only way to obtain technical support for these utilities. Reporting problems When reporting problems with these utilities please provide as much information about your system as possible and rerun the utility with the -debug switch supplied. Redirect the output of the program to a file and forward this to me so that I can get a feel for what was going on with the program and perhaps zero in on the source of the problem. SDI / WDI JDLSS -18- Registration information If you find that these utilities provide an additional value to your system, a partial registration of $20 would be appreciated. If you send $35 or more, you will receive, when available, a diskette and manual for the next version of this software. In addition, registered users drive the direction of change to these utilities. Please state the current version of the software that you are presently using. Send check or money order to: JDLove Rt 6 Box 459R Beaumont, Texas 77705 Acknowledgement The author appreciates the considerable time and effort expended by Bill Isaacson in performing primary Beta test activities with these utilities. In addition, the author appreciates his efforts in reviewing and commenting on the contents of this user manual. SDI / WDI JDLSS -19- Software license You are free to use, copy and distribute these utilities for NONCOMMERCIAL use if: No fee is charged for use, copying or distribution. It is not modified in any way. These utilities are distributed as a self dissolving archive. This archive contains many entries for how to contact the author. Modification of this archive includes but is not limited to the following: do not rezip the archive thereby removing the author's AV, do not add files to the archive. When you make changes to the archive and/or the files it contains, you are in violation of this agreement. Clubs and user groups may charge a nominal fee not to exceed ($5) for expenses and handling while distributing these utilities. Site licenses and commercial licenses are available for these utilities. Consult the file ORDER.DOC for more information, or contact the author for more information. The author hereby disclaims all warranties relating to this software, whether express or implied, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. The author will not be liable for any special, incidental, consequential, indirect or similar damages due to loss of data or any other reason, even if the author or an agent of the author has been advised of the possibility of such damages. In no event shall the author's liability for any damages ever exceed the price paid for the license to use software, regardless of the form of the claim. The person using the software bears all risk as to the quality and performance of the software.