Liren Large Software Subsidy 9

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Graham's TXT2COM | 1993-08-02 | 18.8 KB | 350 lines

Siehe HD-COPY.DOK für eine deutsche Anleitung!!! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- H D - C O P Y 1 . 6 b e t a _________________________________ ~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~ Copyright (c) 1992/93 by TBH-Softworx --- all rights reserved Oliver Fromme, Klingestr. 2, 3380 Goslar, Germany email: inof@sun.rz.tu-clausthal.de (internet) Version of 23 Dec 1992 --- If you've read the documentation of version 1.5, you should read HD-COPY.NEW, otherwise, read this documentation carefully. Please also read the changes of version 1.7α in the file README.17. This Program is CARDWARE. You may copy it, use it, and give it to your friends under the following conditions: * Don't charge any money. * Keep all the files together. * Don't change the files in any way. * If you use this program or if you think that it's useful (or both...?), please write a postcard (e. g. with a beautiful picture of your home town), see my address above. You needn't send money, this is no shareware. (I don't believe to the shareware philosophy. I tried it, and I didn't get any penny :-( Disappointing.) This software consists of the following files: 1. HD-COPY.EXE - the executable main program 2. HD-COPY.DOK - the german documentation 3. HD-COPY.DOC - the english documentation (yet somewhat short) 4. HD-COPY.NEU - changes from 1.5GTI to 1.6ß (german) 5. HD-COPY.NEW - changes from 1.5GTI to 1.6ß (english) ATTENTION: Use HD-COPY on your own risk! I'm not responsible for any damage or loss of data caused by the use of HD-COPY! Write-protect your source-disks! I've tested this program intensively, and it seems to work (when HD-COPY displays no error, the destination-disk was always correct). Nevertheless, be carefull: * This is still a beta-release, maybe you get an error I never got. * I haven't tested it on many different systems (286, MS-DOS 4.0 or below, with different XMS drivers, etc.) ATTENTION: HD-COPY DOES NOT RUN ON PS2-MACHINES !!! (The reason is the busmaster DMA of the microchannel (MCA) architecture. Sorry, but I won't implement that.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- What is HD-COPY? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ HD-COPY is the fastest copy-program (for high density disks) I know (and I know many) --- the fastest by far. You can also use it to format disks at various formats (from 1.2 Mb to 1.722 Mb in this version of HD-COPY), which is faster than DOS' FORMAT and produces less errors. You can't use it with lower density disks (720 Kb or 360 Kb). The following formats are supported: * 5 1/4 inch drives: 1.2 Mb, 1.44 Mb, 1.48 Mb * 3 1/2 inch drives: 1.2 Mb, 1.44 Mb, 1.48 Mb, 1.72 Mb All these formats are compatible. For example, you can copy a 1.44Mb disk from 3 1/2 to 5 1/4. There's one exception: you can't copy 1.72 Mb to a 5 1/4 inch disk (it's technically impossible). HD-COPY v1.6beta isn't yet able to copy 1.968 Kb disks (3 1/2 inch). This format will probably be supported by version 1.7. Typical time of HD-COPY (without FAT-selection): Format, Drive 1.2, 5¼ 1.2, 3½ 1.44, 3½ 1.44, 5¼ 1.72, 3½ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Read/Write/Verify(1) 30 32 36 58 70 Read/Write/Verify(2) 27 32 32 58 70 Form.+Write 67 64 80 107 131 Form.+Write+Verify 94 96 112 160 196 Format 54 65 65 55 67 Format+Verify 68 65 81 109 133 (1) applies to disks formatted with DOS' FORMAT or any other program (such as FDFORMAT). (2) applies to disks formatted with HD-COPY. As you can see, these disks are handled 3 to 4 seconds faster (at standard formats). When you turn on FAT-selection, the durations depend on how full the disk is: Format, Drive 1.2, 5¼ 1.2, 3½ 1.44, 3½ 1.44, 5¼ 1.72, 3½ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Read/Write/Verify(1) 0-30 0-32 0-36 0-58 0-70 Read/Write/Verify(2) 0-27 0-32 0-32 0-58 0-70 Form.+Write 54-67 64 64-80 54-107 64-131 Form.+Write+Verify 54-94 64-96 64-112 54-160 64-196 For 1.48 Mb, look at the duration for 1.44 Mb and add 2.5%. Note: To use non-standard disks (i.e. 5 1/4 disks with more than 1.2 Mb or 3 1/2 disks with more than 1.44 Mb) outside HD-COPY, you have to install a TSR program like FDREAD, because the BIOS doesn't like disks with an unusual number of sectors. HD-COPY don't need FDREAD, since it has its own routines to handle special formats. FDREAD and FDFORMAT are Public Domain programs by Christoph H. Hochstätter, available on ftp-servers all over the world. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- What do I need? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * IBM-AT or 100% compatible clone (80286 minimum!) * a mouse (Microsoft comp.) OR a keyboard * at least one high density diskdrive * a monochrome or colour adapter * 2 Mb of XMS memory OR 2 Mb of free hard disk space (exactly: 1815 Kb) * MS-DOS 3.2 or above (I tested only 5.0) You needn't have the following, but it's recommended: * two high density diskdrives * CGA, EGA, or VGA adapter * a mouse (Microsoft comp.) AND a keyboard What you MUST NOT have: * Software cache program (e. g. SmartDrive, HyperDisk). If you have one: turn it off! * Other memory resident programs (TSRs), which are accessing your disk drives. Disable them! * Perhaps TSRs which are hooking the clock-timer interrupt (18.206 Hz). I think there won't be problems, but I haven't tested that intensively. HD-COPY works fine with monochrome adapters (like Hercules or MDA), but it's less "beautiful". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sorry folks, I've not translated the entire manual. I'm just searching for somebody who can do it better than me. But I think, you will be able to use HD-COPY without a manual, since its user interface is quite intuitive easy to use. Here's a short description: * To start HD-COPY, simply enter it's name. There are a lot of command line parameters, they're displayed when you enter "HD-COPY /?". You can leave HD-COPY by hitting the Esc key in the main menu. Parameters are evaluated in the following order: 1. Environment variable HD-COPYCMD 2. Paremeter file HD-COPY.CFG (same directory as HD.COPY.EXE) 3. Command line parameters HD-COPY.CFG may contain comments, preceded by ";", "%" ,or "#", the remainder of the line is ignored. If a parameter occurs more than once (e.g. "X- X+"), the last one is valid (i.e. "X+"). * Important: After leaving HD-COPY, remove all disks from your drives. Otherwise DOS' internal buffers are not updated, and you will get a lot of errors (which you will notice when it's too late). * You needn't 1815 Kb of XMS memory any more (as of version 1.5), it's now possible to buffer the disk data on hard disk. Then of course you need a hard disk with at least 1815 Kb free disk space. The temporary buffer file is created the directory specified by one of the following environment variables: HD-COPYTEMP TEMP TMP If none of them points to a directory where a 1815 Kb file can be created, "C:\" is tried (as a last chance). If this fails too, HD-Copy is aborted. The directory specification must consist of a complete Path including a drive letter, e.g. "C:\TMP" or "C:\TMP\" (the trailing "\" is optional). If you have no (or not enough) XMS, but another kind of RAM memory (e.g. LIM-EMS), you should install a RAM-disk of 1815 Kb (or more), this would be much faster than buffering on hard disk. However, XMS memory is the fastest possibility. So, if you have the choice between XMS and EMS, choose XMS. * There are three ways to work with HD-COPY: - The easiest way: use your mouse. Click on any main menu entry to do the desired action. Click on any option window entry to change that option. Click on the source window to read a source disk. Click on the destination window to write to a destination disk. Click on the title line of the source/destination window to change the source/destination drive (only if you have two drives). Note: Disk read/write can only be interrupted by a key stroke, not by a mouse click. Click on "Format destination" (main menu) to enter the format menu, then choose your favourite disk format. Don't forget to turn verify on! - Use the cursor keys to walk around, hit the return key to do the action the marker is on. - Every action has a hot key (displayed in red). Experienced users may use this, because it's faster than mouse moving and clicking. * The "Testing" of the destination disk isn't very safe. It just tests one sector per track. It detects unformatted disks and heavy (I mean REALLY HEAVY) hard-errors. * With "Put to file" you can save an image of a disk to your hard disk. The image is slightly compressed, so you can usually put it to another disk of the same format. But you should additionally compress it with a "real" compress utility, I recommend ARJ (shareware) by Robert Jung, it has excellent compression rates. * There's an menu, called format menu, which enables you to format the disk in the destination drive. The format is fully compatible with DOS' FORMAT and the high-capacity-formatter FDFORMAT. It's also possible to format in RISK-mode. You may turn off verify, but you shouldn't do this. It's very fast even with verification (faster than FORMAT and FDFORMAT). Track 0 is always verified, since this track contains vital information (bootblock, FAT, root directory). Every formatted disk gets a unique name and a unique identification number (8 hex digits). Of course you can change the name with DOS' LABEL command. The option "format destination" doesn't influence this menu. * Something special with the format menu (only with verify on!): If you format standard disks (max. 18 sectors at 3.5", 15 sectors at 5.25"), a single bad sector per track can be exchanged with a "spare sector". This means: you can format disks which contain bad blocks (or which FORMAT just refuses to format because the bad block is on track 0) and get the full capacity (there are no bad blocks anymore)! If such an exchange takes place, the corresponding track is verified twice to ensure data safety. If there are two or more bad blocks on a track (or if you use a non-standard format), HD-Copy can't eliminate all bad blocks on this track. Of course the remaining bad blocks are marked (in the FAT), so they're not used for data storage. Note: this applies only to "stand-alone format" (i.e. within the format menu). If HD-Copy is formatting while writing its buffer contents, no exchange and no FAT-marking of bad blocks takes place. (Perhaps this is something for version 1.7 ...) * If you're not really sure about the quality of your disks, turn "auto verify" on! It's worth the additional seconds, believe me. * If you turn on "FAT selection", only tracks that hold data are read/written. If you turn it off, the entire disk is read/written (even empty tracks). * If your destination disk(s) are already formatted (matching the format of the source disk(s)), you can turn "Format destination" off. Note: this option is ignored in "prof"-mode and in RISK-mode. * "Password protection": Use it carefully! If it's active, the passsword is used when formatting, reading, AND writing. To write (or read) a protected disk, it must be formatted with the same password. A protected disk can't be used with any other program (you get lots of errors). The only way to use it is to read it with HD-COPY (with the applied password, of course) and then write it to a normal disk WITHOUT protection. Note: the password is case sensitive ("Joe" and "JOE" are different passwords). You have to enter it twice, the letters are not displayed on the screen. * There's a option called "head settle time". It's normally off. If you turn it on, there's a short delay after every track change (this is the "head settle time"). I hope this option is not needed. If you have to turn it on (to avoid disk errors), please let me know. * "Verbose mode": Keep this "on", you get more messages in some cases. If you turn it off, you won't get messages saying "drive X recalibrated" or "...error, trying again". * "User mode": - Safe: HD-COPY asks if it should overwrite any data it has discovered on destination disks. - Prof: HD-COPY overwrites any data on destination disks. In addition, it detects the format of the destination disk and turns "Format destination" on or off, if necessary. - Risk: As "Prof", but you needn't do anything anymore: Every second all disk drives are tested. If there's a new disk in the source drive, it is immediately read. If there's a new disk in the destination drive, it is immediately written. Be careful! If source and destination drive are the same, source and destination disks are distinguished only by the write-protection. So protect your source disks! Perhaps you should try this mode first with some unimportant disks. This mode also works with the format menu. * This is an overview of all symbols which HD-Copy 1.6ß is using to signal any disk activities (windows 1 and 2): R (green) : Read - the track was read successfully V (green) : Verify - the track was written correctly T (green) : Test - the track is formatted and (hmm...) can be read C (green) : Corrected - an bad block was successfully exchanged W (blue) : Write - the track was written F (purple) : Format - the track was formatted E (red) : Error - a read or write error occured B (red) : Buffer error occured (transfer from/to buffer file) M (red) : Mismatch - disk and buffer data are different - (grey) : a free (empty) track (needs no further treatment) · (grey) : a free (empty) track (not yet reached) (grey) : an allocated track (not yet reached) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- That's all for this time. Hope you like it. Remember: This is yet a beta-release, and hopefully I get many email (or just better: postcards) saying "it works on my xyz-machine!". But if it doesn't work, please tell me exactly what happened, what type of machine you used, which DOS and which TSRs you had installed (a copy of your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT would be helpful) and whatever you think it might be important. Thanks 8-> What I'm planning for version 1.7... * Exchange of bad blocks when writing the buffer's contents. (i.e. not only with the "stand-alone format"). * Support of 4 floppy disk drives, with 1 or 2 controllers. * Support of 1.968 Mb disks. * Support of 2.88 Mb disks and drives, and formats of up to 3.526 Mb on such drives (perhaps up to 3.936 Mb, using the same techniques as for 1.968 Mb). * The ability to view the contents of the root directory of any disk. So long, Ciao, Tschuess, Per aspera ad astra Olli 8-) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oliver Fromme, Klingestr. 2, 3380 Goslar, Germany email: inof@sun.rz.tu-clausthal.de (internet) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "May the Force be with you. Always." (Star Wars) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------