ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 Shareware Freeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)

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FormatMaster 4.4 A Menu Driven Floppy Disk Formatter Copyright 1987,92 by New-Ware All Rights Reserved Contents 1 PROLOG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2 REGISTRATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 3 CREDITS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4 VERSION HISTORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5 REGISTERING FORMATMASTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 6 GETTING UP AND RUNNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 6.1 PROGRAM INTIALIZATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 7 FORMATMASTER OPERATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 7.1 FORMATING OPTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 7.2 FORMATING A DISK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 7.3 RAPID FORMAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 7.4 ONLY VERIFY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 7.5 DEFINE DRIVE TABLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 7.6 ENTER DOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 7.7 CHECK DISK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 7.8 TRANSFER SYSTEM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 7.9 ADD VOL LABEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 7.10 CYCLIC FORMAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 7.11 BEEPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 7.12 VERIFY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 7.13 QUIT TO DOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 7.14 PRINT REGISTRATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 7.15 @ CONFIGURE FM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 7.16 THE ESCAPE KEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 7.17 ERROR HANDLING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 7.18 TERMINATE AND STAY RESIDENT (TSR) VERSION . . . 14 8 TECHNICAL NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 9 MONITOR PROBLEMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 10 MOUSE SUPPORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Index 17 i 1 PROLOG DISCLAIMER New-Ware hereby disclaims all warranties relating to this product, whether express or implied, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. New- Ware cannot and will not be liable for any special, incidental, consequential, indirect or similar damages due to loss of data or any other reason, even if New-Ware or an authorized New-Ware agent has been advised of the possibility of such damages. In no event shall the liability for any damages ever exceed the price paid for the license to use software, regardless of the form and/or extent of the claim. The user of this program bears all risk as to the quality and performance of the software. LICENSE FormatMaster is a Shareware product. As such, it is made available to the general computing public for evaluation. Users are licensed to operate FormatMaster on their personal computers for the purpose of test and evaluation on a trial basis for a limited trial period. It is not possible to reasonably define any definitive limits of a fair and equitable time period for evaluation, therefore it is left to the user's judgment and sense of fair play as to the time required to make a decision as to its usefulness. If the user decides the program is not of sufficient merit to warrant purchase through registration with New- Ware, the program should be removed from their personal computer. Otherwise, if the program is deemed useful and is in regular use on the user's personal computer system, registration with New-Ware is required. Registered users are those users that elect to pay for FormatMaster and register that payment with New-Ware. By virtue of registration and payment for the program, registered users are granted a license to continue to utilize the program on their personal computer for as long as they choose. This license authorizes the user to use the program on any personal computer system he or she may own so long as the program is operated on only one computer system at a time. 2 REGISTRATION FormatMaster is sole property of New-Ware Shareware products. The Shareware version, and ONLY that version, may be freely copied and transferred to individual parties for evaluation purposes. The Shareware version, and ONLY that version, may be posted on Bulletin Board systems (BBS) for electronic access as long as NO FEE is charged for its distribution except for private BBS operations that charge a - 2 - regular user subscription fee. Computer information services such as Compuserve (CIS), Genie, etc., are authorized to post this product for subscriber access. The Shareware version of FormatMaster may NOT be distributed on diskette by any disk distributor/vendor that charges more than $10.00 for the diskette upon which the program and attendant files are recorded without written consent from New-Ware. FormatMaster is a fully functional Shareware product. Shareware is a computer program distribution/marketing method that permits potential buyers to thoroughly try the program prior to purchase. It is NOT free and it is not in the Public Domain. If, after evaluating the program, you find it to be useful enough to use it on a regular basis, you are expected to pay for it by registering with New-Ware. The registration fee is $20.00 and the registered version, which is NOT distributed as Shareware, will not contain the opening Shareware screen nor the closing messages. A special TSR version is available for $30.00. You may register FormatMaster in one of three ways: 1) By mail with check or money order to: New-Ware 8050 Camino Kiosco San Diego, CA 92122-1820 2) By telephone with Visa/Mastercard to: New-Ware (619) 455-6225 3) Electronically through the New-Ware BBS: New-Ware Shareware Products BBS (619) 450-3257 - Node #1 1200/2400/9600 (HST) 455-5226 - Node #2 1200/2400 The New-Ware Shareware Products BBS operates 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Node #1 is dedicated to registered users only. Nodes #2 is open to all callers. Users registering via the BBS receive access to the latest registered version within 1 day after leaving their credit card data. Users who register by mail or phone may also access the registered version by BBS, but you MUST log on and leave a comment to the sysop to the effect that you are a registered user and desire access. The author can also on CIS via PPN 71535,665 (please use EMAIL). The Shareware version of FormatMaster may be freely copied and passed on to other individual users for their evaluation. Disk vendors - 3 - and/or distributors that desire to distribute FormatMaster must adhere to the guidelines specified in the file named VENDOR.DOC. 3 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 Edward Mendelson for his good ideas. Thanks to Kurt Diesch for saving me some valuable time by providing some needed information. Last, but certainly not least, thanks to Sammy Mitchell for his TERRIFIC editor, QEDIT. 4DOS is copyright by JP Software. NDOS is a version of 4DOS that is licensed to Symantic. 4 VERSION HISTORY 3.00 - Major changes to format screen display. - Added DOS block device control format options. 3.10 - Added a check disk command to the main menu and to the new choice menu. - Added a choice menu for user input during format operations. - Added dynamic display of format/verify progress. - Fixed minor bugs in message display sequence. 3.20 - Added runtime check for SYS.COM and COMMAND.COM location. - Improved system transfer display. - Speeded up BOOT, FAT, and directory sector initialization. 3.30 - Added elapsed time to format display. - Added toggle for use of beeps. - Added submenu for one/two drive cyclic ops. - Improved display of advisory messages. - Improved auto-detection of previously formatted disk types. - Added automatic verification and fat update following a rapid format of a disk that contained marked bad sectors. 3.31 - Bug fixes and display improvement. - 4 - - Improved auto detection of type of formatted disk. 3.32 - Fixed bug in properly handling 3rd and 4th system drives. 3.33 - Fixed bug in Check Disk function that occurred with 3 1/2" disks formatted to 800K. 3.34 - Fixed problem with display of volume labels during serialized label ops. - Added possible fix for problem with formatting 800K disks under DOS 4.xx. 3.35 - Maintenance release with minor bug fixes. 3.36 - Maintenance release with minor bug fixes. 3.37 - Fixed problem with maintaining mono ("m" switch) configuration after saving configuration. - Minor bug fixes and enhancements. 4.0 - Removed 400K/800K formatting if favor of 720K formatting of 360K disks on a 1.2M drive. - Fixed problem with verifying disks under DOS 5.0. - Changed to an external FMTMAS.CFG file. 4.1 - DOS 5.0 boot sector information was incorrect. Fixed. - Fixed problems with the Shareware registration form function. 4.2 - Fixed bug that caused failure to properly restore configuration from the .CFG file. 4.3 - Fixed another bug in the FMTMAS.CFG read function. - Fixed problem with detecting drive not ready during a two-drive cyclic format operation. 4.4 - Removed 720K formatting. - Fixed problem with verifying high capacity disks (1.2M/1.4M) following a rapid format). 5 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. 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 following ways: (1) Mail a check or money order in the amount of $20.00 - 5 - payable to New-Ware. California residents PLEASE!! add 7.75% sales tax ($21.55 total). (2) Mail your Visa or Mastercard number, card expiration date, phone number, and signature to New-Ware. (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. 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 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 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. 6 GETTING UP AND RUNNING Operation of FormatMaster is relatively simple and straightforward. Almost all operations are accomplished through selection of a menu item, either via the cursor bar and hitting ENTER or by pressing the key of the first letter of a menu item. There are, however, some initialization steps that should be taken before attempting to format any disks. 6.1 PROGRAM INTIALIZATION Here are the two things you should do to get the program to a fully functional state: (1) Select "Set Drive Table" from the main menu. FM will normally detect and use the correct parameters for the type of drives in your system but if the actual drive information differs, use the drive table menu to make the appropriate changes. (2) Make sure that the DOS utility SYS.COM is in a - 6 - directory that is listed in your path string and that this directory is on the system boot drive 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. 7 FORMATMASTER OPERATION FormatMaster is menu driven and therefore quite easy to use. The main menu contains the following selections: Simultaneous Format/Verify Format/Verify via DOS Format/Verify via BIOS Rapid Format Only Verify Define Drive Table Enter DOS Check Disk Transfer System OFF Add Vol Label OFF cYclic Format OFF Beeps ON Verify OFF Quit to DOS Print Registration @ Configure FM 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 prior to formatting any disks. The main menu may be skipped by executing FormatMaster with the drive letter and a colon on the command line as follows: FM a: In this case, the main format routine window will appear and FormatMaster will be ready to format the drive whose letter was placed on the command line. It is suggested that some users might desire to configure different copies of FM.EXE in different ways and then load the - 7 - desired copy with the drive letter on the command line to speed up operation and to minimize keystrokes. All menu items are augmented by a help line that is written between the top two double lines of the screen. 7.1 FORMATING OPTIONS The first three menu items on the main menu access different formatting techniques. The first of these is the "Simultaneous Format/Verify" option. This will format and verify a diskette in the same manner that DOS accomplishes that feat. This option will be the slowest but safest method of formatting. The second technique, "Format/Verify Via DOS" is really only a variant of the above option. Here the disk is formatted using DOS first and then, if the Verify switch is set, a full verification is performed. Separating the two functions permits formatting without verifying. If you are using high quality diskettes, you can save a lot of formatting time by skipping the verification. The third technique, "Format/Verify Via BIOS" uses direct BIOS calls instead of DOS calls and is included for those who might still be using a DOS version less than 3.1 or those who have difficulty formatting add-on floppy drives via DOS. Please note that if you are running a version of DOS that is earlier than 3.1, the first two menu items will be disabled. 7.2 FORMATING A DISK Selection of one of the first three menu items brings up a menu of available system floppy drives. If this menu does not accurately reflect the actual drives in your system, then use the "Define Drive Table" option on the main menu to properly configure FM for your system. 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 four options in a pop-up menu. Options on this menu are: OK - Continue Abort View Check Disk Quit To DOS Use Abort to discontinue the formatting operation. The View option will display an abbreviated directory listing of the target drive so that you may decide if you really want to format the disk or not. The - 8 - Continue option will proceed with formatting. Since the target disk is already formatted, you may desire to save some time by doing a Quick Format. The Quick Format option simply re-initializes the FAT and ROOT DIRECTORY areas of the diskette instead of doing a complete track-by- track format. Verification will proceed normally, if that switch is ON. The View option will clear the screen and display the files on the target drive. The Check Disk option displays information similar to the DOS CHKDSK utility. If the disk is not formatted, FormatMaster will check the capacity entry in the drive table and if the drive is a high capacity drive, you will be asked whether you desire to format a high capacity diskette. If the disk contains data, FormatMaster will automatically adjust to the proper format mode. After this query, FormatMaster will format the disk, updating the 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, the volume label entered from the main menu will be added to the target disk. A disk counter is incremented and displayed during cyclic formatting to help you keep track of the number of disks formatted. If Cyclic formatting is not in progress, a "Your Choice" submenu is presented at the completion of each disk format/verify operation. Options on this menu are: Format Another Main Menu Check Disk Quit To DOS These options are self-explanatory. 7.3 RAPID FORMAT "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 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 conjunction with "Cyclic = ONE (or TWO)", things tend to go rather rapidly, so there is a pause for a key press to allow time for swapping disks. The "Verify" option may be used in conjunction with this feature. A previously formatted disk may have bad sectors that were marked by DOS or FormatMaster when it was formatted. FormatMaster will detect this situation and automatically verify and update the disk FAT following the rapid format. - 9 - Note that it is NOT possible to rapid format an unformatted disk. 7.4 ONLY VERIFY "Only Verify = ON" turns on diskette verification but will not format the target disk. This feature is to be used ONLY with formatted disks and is useful in verifying the integrity of a data diskette. The diskette FAT will NOT be updated following the verification check. If FormatMaster discovers bad sectors on the disk it is strongly advised to attempt to copy all the data from the diskette to a freshly formatted and verified diskette and then reformat and re-verify the diskette. 7.5 DEFINE DRIVE TABLE FormatMaster will attempt to detect how the floppy disk drives in your system are configured at runtime. 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 high capacity. 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 may need to use the FM drive table setup feature to assure proper performance. At runtime FormatMaster will automatically set the drive table according to information derived from the ROM BIOS or DOS (version 3.2 or later). In most cases this information will accurately reflect the status of the drives in your system and it will be unnecessary to alter the drive table. There may be some cases, however, where the table is not properly by FormatMaster, particularly in the case of add-on 3 1/2" drives that use a DOS logical drive designator (i.e., B:,C:,D:) that is not in the usual sequence. The first time you run FormatMaster you should check the drive table settings to determine if they match the way your system is configured. If so, you need do nothing more (although it is okay to save the drive table, if you wish). Otherwise, use the menu to set the table properly and be sure to save the table before attempting to format any disks. Floppy disk controllers can address at most up to four drives and access the available drives through numeric codes that 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 - 10 - 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 normal or high capacity drive. A high capacity drive is one that supports both normal and high density diskettes. For example, the AT comes with a high capacity 5 1/4" drive as DOS drive A. It will format either normal (360KB) or high-density (1.2MB) floppies. Many systems now have high capacity 3 1/2" drives which format either 720KB or 1.4MB diskettes. Configuring the FM drive table is relatively simple. You select one of the four drives from the menu and then use the drive table parameter entry dialog window. This window will display the drive letter, drive size, and drive capacity edit fields to you. Use the mouse, Tab key, or Enter key to move through the fields. You can set the drive letter by pressing any letter key. The drive size and density fields are toggled by pressing the space bar, + key, or - key. To accept and store your changes press the F-10 key, otherwise press the Esc key. Once you have made the settings appropriate for your system, you can save them permanently to disk via the "@ Configure FM" main menu function. If in doubt about which logical drive matches which physical drive, you can experiment. FM contains numerous checks to determine if a hard drive is selected for formatting and will abort if this is the case. In addition, FM makes no calls to any DOS or BIOS function that writes to or formats a hard disk. One way to ensure that the drive table is properly configured and only floppy drives will be accessed is to perform an FM Check Disk operation with a formatted disk in each of the available system drives. 7.6 ENTER DOS "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. 7.7 CHECK DISK Selection of this item will bring up the drive selection submenu. Upon selection of a drive, FormatMaster will display a window that contains nearly the same information as the DOS CHKDSK utility provides. The Check Disk function is also available from the choice menu that is displayed during format/verify operations. 7.8 TRANSFER SYSTEM 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 (or 4DOS.COM/NDOS.COM). FormatMaster will transfer system files to a freshly formatted disk, but you must insure that it can access the DOS - 11 - 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. FormatMaster will attempt to locate SYS.COM, the DOS system files, and COMMAND.COM at runtime. If these files cannot be located, the Transfer System option on the main menu will be disabled. 4DOS and NDOS users should note that you have a choice of which command interpreter you wish copied to a floppy diskette when creating a system disk. If FM finds a copy of DOS COMMAND.COM anywhere in your DOS path, it will copy that file to the system disk. Otherwise it will copy the file specified by the DOS environment variable COMSPEC=. 7.9 ADD VOL LABEL "Add Volume Label" provides a means for the entry of a diskette volume label prior to formatting any disks. Selecting this item results in the presentation of a window which will prompt for the desired volume label. Any valid DOS label name may be entered. If the entered label name contains a number as the LAST portion of the name, that number can be used to add sequential serial numbers to each formatted diskette. For example, if the entered name is SER-0001, FormatMaster will use SER-0001 for the first disk, SER-0002 for the second disk, SER-0022 for the 22nd disk, and so on. Any sequence of numeric digits ('0' to '9') may be used, but they must comprise the LAST portion of the label name. SER-0022X would not be used for sequential disk numbering. If an acceptable sequential number is entered, you will be asked if you wish to use the entered label for serializing disks. If the response is Y(es), then disks formatted using the Cycle Format option will be automatically sequentially serialized using the entered digit series as a base. The last serial number used can be saved via the "" menu item. When saving the current configuration to disk, FormatMaster will ask if you wish to save the current serial number. If the response is Y(es), then the current label name and sequence number is saved to disk. The next time FormatMaster is run it will use the next number in the sequence for cyclically formatting and adding the volume label. To turn off the addition of a volume label, simply press ESC or enter an empty string when prompted for the label. Entry of a label name that does not contain a proper sequence of digits at the end of the name will stop the sequential updating of the serial number. If the toggle is ON, it may be set to OFF by selecting the menu item, deleting the current volume label, and returning to the main menu. - 12 - 7.10 CYCLIC FORMAT "cYclic Format", when set to ONE or TWO, provides a means to rapidly format disks in TWO of your system floppy drives. Selecting this item will bring up a submenu from which ONE drive or TWO drive cyclic formatting may be selected. When entering the main format display, 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 high capacity drive, you will be asked if you are going to be formatting high capacity 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, 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. You may terminate the formatting cycle by pressing the ESC key at any time. The formatting operation will continue to completion on whichever drive is active at the time the key is pressed and a message will appear that informs you that the formatting will be terminated following the formatting of the current drive. If the Esc key is pressed a second time, the formatting will terminate immediately. 7.11 BEEPS FormatMaster signals a number of operation completions with an audible beep. The beeps may be suppressed by toggling the Beeps toggle to OFF. 7.12 VERIFY "Verify = ON" switches the verification feature on and off. If set to "ON", disk verification will be performed using the BIOS CRC verification routine. Every sector on the disk is checked and all bad sectors are marked. FormatMaster will report bad sectors as cluster groups in the Advisory Message box. At the end of the verification, if were any bad sectors found FormatMaster will update the File Allocation Table (FAT) to lock out those sectors. Note that turning verification to ON will slow down the total formatting process. In some cases, FormatMaster may be more stringent than DOS and mark more sectors unusable. That will result in less total disk space available on a damaged disk, but is preferable to the opposite approach. 7.13 QUIT TO DOS "Quit To DOS" terminates FormatMaster and returns you to the DOS level. Alt-X will also terminate the program. Pressing the Esc key can also be used to exit FM but a confirmation window is presented first. - 13 - 7.14 PRINT REGISTRATION "Print 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. 7.15 @ CONFIGURE FM To semi-permanently configure FormatMaster, use the "@ Configure FM.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. Configuration settings are saved to a file named FMTMAS.CFG. The save configuration screen will indicate where FM intends to save this file and gives you a chance to save it to a specific location of your choice. When FM loads, it will look first in the current directory for FMTMAS.CFG. If it finds it, it will load it and proceed. If not, it will then search all the directories found in the DOS path for the file. It will load the first copy of FMTMAS.CFG it finds. 7.16 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 advisory message. If the cyclic toggle is in effect, FormatMaster will terminate the operation after completing the format operation on the current disk. If the Esc key is pressed a second time, formatting will be aborted immediately. 7.17 ERROR HANDLING All detected errors are reported in the Error Message box and error messages are accompanied by an audible beep. Bad disk clusters detected during verification are reported in the Advisory Message box. 7.18 TERMINATE AND STAY RESIDENT (TSR) VERSION A special version of FormatMaster that installs as a memory resident TSR is available directly from New-Ware. This version permits users to pop-up FormatMaster from within a non-graphics application program and format floppy disks. POPFM requires only 6K of normal RAM and utilizes EMS, XMS, or hard disk to swap code/data in and out of memory. The activation key combination (hot key) is user- configurable. Users who order POPFM will receive the full FormatMaster package plus the special TSR utility for $30.00. - 14 - 8 TECHNICAL NOTES FormatMaster is written in a combination of Turbo Pascal 6.0 and assembly language and makes generous use of TurboPower Software's excellent Turbo Professional 5.23 package. Formatting is accomplished via INT 13h ROM BIOS service calls based upon parameters in the drive table or via the DOS block device control (IOCTL) function. Disk verification during format does not perform a rigorous sector read/write type of verification and can be skipped if one is using decent quality diskettes. Note that the DOS device control function also utilizes the BIOS disk sector verification function. New-Ware has formatted and distributed thousands of low cost bulk-purchased diskettes that were formatted by FM without verification. The disk return rate to date has been practically nil. The program was developed on an AST 20 Mhz Premium/386 equipped with one dual capacity 5 1/4" disk drive, one dual capacity 3 1/2" disk, and a VGA monitor running MSDOS 5.0 and QEMM 6.1. It has been thoroughly tested on the 386, an AST Premium/286, AST Bravo 286, and a 386 SX clone. MSDOS 3.2, 3.3, and 4.01 were used on standard 360K/720K and dual capacity 1.2M/1.4M disk drives. 9 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: FM m This will force FormatMaster to use a set of monochrome attributes that should work fine on LapTop and composite monitors. Using the main menu Config command will save the current color configuration so that using the "m" on the command line will no longer be necessary the next time FormatMaster is loaded. 10 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. - 15 - Documentation prepared on Borland International's Sprint. Copyright 1987,1992 and All Rights Reserved by New-Ware 8050 Camino Kiosco San Diego, CA 92122 - 16 - Index 4DOS 12 H help line 8 A high capacity drive 11 Abort 8 Add Volume Label 12 L AST 15 laptop portables 15 B M bad sectors 13 main menu 7 Beeps 13 monochrome 15 Borland 16 Mouse 15 MSDOS 15 C CGA 15 N Check Disk 9, 11 NDOS 12 COMMAND.COM 11 New-Ware 3 command line 7 Compuserve 3 O configure FormatMaster 14 Only Verify 10 Continue option 8 cYclic Format 13 P PATHINFO.TXT 12 D Print Registration Form 14 data diskettes 11 disk counter 9 Q DOS PATH command 12 Quick Format 9 drive designator 10 Quit To DOS 13 drive table 10 R E Rapid Format 9 Enter DOS 11 register 2 ESC key 14 Registration 5 F S F-10 key 11 Shareware 2 File Allocation Table 13 Shareware Products BBS 3 Sprint 16 G SYS.COM 12 Genie 3 T Turbo Pascal 15 - 17 - TurboPower Software 15 View option 9 V Verify 13 - 18 -