Chip 1994 February

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DISK COPY FAST Copyright 1992-1994 Chang Ping Lee page 27 17. INTRODUCING OTHER FINE PRODUCTS 17.1 DISK COPY PLUS "I really find your DISK COPY PLUS a very very fine program. It literally has saved me a lot of time copying diskettes." ----- one user, United States DISK COPY PLUS is the professional version of DISK COPY FAST. It includes all the features of DISK COPY FAST plus some advanced features. To many people, large quantity diskette duplicating means that you need to buy high-price copier. Not so any more. With DISK COPY PLUS you can assemble two low-end 286 PCs each equipped with up to four floppy drives at much lower price and achieve much higher copying speed. Not only do You get higher productivity, but also that you get two computers instead of a special purpose machine. DISK COPY PLUS is even better for you if you only need to copy a small quantity of the same source diskette every day. Consider the low cost, incredibly high speed (see section 10 in DCF47.DOC) and other powerful features (explained later), DISK COPY PLUS is hard to beat. One of the most powerful features of DISK COPY PLUS is customized hot keys. You define up to 10 hot keys according to your special needs. A feature similar to hot keys but requiring no keystrokes is the AUTOEXEC feature. You define what DISK COPY PLUS should do automatically when you run the program, just like AUTOEXEC.BAT does when you reboot your computer. For example, DISK COPY PLUS can be configured so that each time you type DCP at the DOS prompt it will read an image file, set up a serial number (explained later), define read/write options and then prompt for the target disk. You then insert DISK COPY FAST Copyright 1992, 1993 Chang Ping Lee page 28 the target into drive A:, close the door and it will start copying. After you have done with one format, at the press of one key it converts the source to another format, say, from 720KB to 360KB, and continue copying in another drive. In this example, it takes only two keystrokes (one to change format, another to quit.) to produce as many 360KB and 720KB target diskettes as you like. Each copy produced can have a unique serial number and each copy can be double checked with a BYTE-BY-BYTE comparison to make sure they are identical to the original, except for the serial number. This high degree of automation means that you can save time for more creative work, or you can hire someone who knows nothing about computers to do the copying for you. Another nice feature of DISK COPY PLUS is automatic serial number assignment. Some people like to change the disk serial number that DOS shows you when you use the DIR command. Other people like to imbed a unique serial number in their product. DISK COPY PLUS allow you to do either or both types of these serial numbers. In addition, it provides other tools to help you find and VERIFY the right location for imbedding serial numbers and show you the imbedded serial number on any duplicated diskette. This feature can be done automatically using the hot keys or AUTOEXEC features. DISK COPY PLUS also keeps track of serial number of EVERY image file for you so that you don't need to specify the serial number each time you run the program. It also keeps a log file for your diskette duplication. With a little editing (you add the distribution destination) the log file becomes a nice record of your diskette distribution. The power of DISK COPY PLUS keeps growing. Listed below are some other powerful commands. DISK COPY FAST Copyright 1992, 1993 Chang Ping Lee page 29 The DIAG command checks boot sector, file allocation table (FAT) and directory structure and provides reports for diskette usage and fragmentation. The CONVERT command convert diskette image from one format to another, so long as the data on original format can fit into the new format. For example, a 1.44 MB disk can be converted to 360 KB diskette if the data on the 1.44 MB disk does not exceed the total data space on a 360 KB diskette. The DEFRAG command performs defragmentation on a diskette. It does more than just sectors swapping. The entire diskette is checked thoroughly for any possible way of compaction. The result is a perfect with no waste of space and no fragmentation. The DUMP command lets you move around the loaded diskette at very high speed. You can use it to check the contents of a diskette or verify the imbedded location(s) of a serial number. DISK COPY PLUS also provides commands that allow you to see the directory of a diskette, image file or diskette loaded in memory. DISK COPY FAST Copyright 1992, 1993 Chang Ping Lee page 30 17.2 DISK UTIL PACK "Your Disk Utility Package has many useful features. I was amazed by the copying speed of the F2H & H2F. They are time saving utilities. Great to use." ----- one user, Singapore DISK UTIL PACK is a collection of five high performance and useful diskette utility programs. For example, the author uses H2F every day for filling orders for DISK COPY FAST and related products. F2H (Floppy to Hard disk) A utility to copy a diskette to hard disk or RAM disk at very high speed. See the following table for benchmark results. H2F (Hard disk to Floppy) A utility to copy recursively from current directory on hard disk or RAM disk to a diskette at very high speed. This program combined with F2H is ideal for backing up a small directory. See the following table for benchmark results. H2F vs XCOPY F2H vs XCOPY -------------------------------------------------- Case 1 (1.2MB) 8 vs 40 8 vs 17 Case 1 (1.44MB) 9 vs 50 9 vs 19 Case 2 (1.2MB) 9 vs 33 9 vs 18 Case 2 (1.44MB) 8 vs 40 9 vs 19 Note: (1) Case 1 contains 36 files and no sub directory. Case 2 contains 13 files in 21 sub directories. Total file size in both cases is about 300 KB. (2) Performance varies on different systems. The above benchmark results are provided as an example, NOT a guarantee. (3) The above results were measured with a RAM disk on a 33 MHz 386 compatible system. DISK COPY FAST Copyright 1992, 1993 Chang Ping Lee page 31 FMT A utility to format 360KB, 1.2MB, 720KB and 1.44MB diskettes. Features include no keyboard operation, serial number assignment, label assignment and bad sectors handling. You type the program name at DOS prompt to start and press the ESC key to end, no keystroke in between! The serial number and label can be assigned incrementally with a text file which stores the serial number and label for the next diskette to be formatted. You can keep more than one text file for this purpose. Before exit, FMT will update the file automatically. Conventionally, a cluster is marked as bad cluster if the formatting program fails to access after three tries. FMT, however, adopts a more strict policy to ensure that your valuable data won't be saved on places which are bad or about to turn bad. FMT will try three times too. The difference is that if FMT fails to access a sector in the first try it will mark the sector bad and tell you how many tries has failed. CLN A utility to make full use of cleaning kits sold by 3M, Memorex and other companies. Without CLN, all you can do is to use commands such as DIR to get the disk drive moving and bring head into contact with the cleaning disk and the cleaning solution on it. However, there are two problems that only CLN can help you. Firstly, how many DIR commands you need to keep typing to keep the disk head in contact with the cleaning disk for 30 to 60 seconds? With CLN you only need to type CLN to start and press the ESC to end the process, no keystrokes in between. CLN also "reads" both sides of every "track" to make full use of your cleaning kit. Try CLN once and you will know how many keystrokes it can save for you. Secondly, since there is no data on the disk DOS will stop after it fails to access the first track. This means you may only be using 0.625% of the surface of your cleaning disk! (There are 80 tracks on a high density drive. Each track has two sides and you are only using one side on the first track.) DISK COPY FAST Copyright 1992, 1993 Chang Ping Lee page 32 CLN not only forces your system to keep on "reading" different tracks on the cleaning disk and thus clean the head more thoroughly but also provides you simple and easy ways to verify that it does what it claims. Your will have the confidence that you give your diskette drive the best care possible. CHDK (CHeck DisKette) A utility which gives detailed information about a diskette. It shows you the information contained in the system area of the diskette, check the integrity of the system area, gives you detailed layout of system area, root directory and data area and then give you a report of the fragmentation on the diskette. The program also shows you other important or interesting information about a diskette. For example, it shows you the sectors, clusters and tracks with active data, maximum number of root directory entries. CHDK shows you lots of information packed in one screen.