29034588@sdcc3.UUCP (29034588) (05/15/85)
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I have written a disk test program for MS-DOS/PC-DOS computers that I
thought other people might find useful (particularly those who have IBM ATs).
It has several different commands for examining and testing either hard or
floppy disks. Theoretically, it should run on any disk, but I have only
tested it on floppys, a Zobex 16 megabyte hard disk, and the AT's CMI drive
(which prompted my writing the program in the first place).
The program allows you to mark sectors/clusters as being bad without
having to reformat the drive. It will also tell you where a file is or
which file contains a given cluster. There are a few other commands as well.
I'd be happy to distribute the executable over the net if there is
sufficient interest. I am intending to mail it to net.micro.pc rather than
net.sources as it is only of interest to this group. I will probably
compress(1) it before uuencodeing it unless this causes a problem for
somebody. After compressing and uuencoding, it is 32k.
I'd rather not distribute the source code over the net, but would be
happy to give it away to anyone who wants it. It's written in Lattice C,
though it could easily be modified for other compilers.
Oh yes. While examining the ROM code for the AT I found that there
is an entry point that will format (really format) a track on the hard disk.
I have not been able to figure out why IBM did not make use of this entry
point in their FORMAT command (which only scribbles on the FATs and the
root directory, leaving the rest of the hard disk untouched). Any ideas?
Gary Gilbreath
sdcsvax!sdcc3!29034588pier@ur-univax.UUCP (05/16/85)
I tried to send mail to the author but sth odd happened so I am posting this response instead. When you mail the program to the net, could give detailed instructions on how to download it, unsqueeze, decode it or whatever as I have never done that before. Thanks Pierre DarmonUniversity of Rochester