ashworth@handel.cs.colostate.edu (brian lee ashworth) (03/21/91)
I am using MSC 5.1 and am trying to find a high level dos or possibly bios call to determine the status of the disk drive. In particular I am trying to detect what the status of the write protect tab is. My problem stems from the fact that I get a write protect error Abort, Retry, Ignore? message when I try to write to a file using fopen and fprintf. I would like to detect the status before I write to the file so that dos doesn't have a chance to display it's error. I have looked in many books and dos manuals for bios calls with no luck. thanks in advance! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Brian Ashworth CS major trying to just make it through | | E-mail address ashworth@handel.colostate.edu | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark.Tutt@f88.n363.z1.fidonet.org (Mark Tutt) (03/23/91)
bla> I am using MSC 5.1 and am trying to find a high level dos or possibly bla> bios bla> call to determine the status of the disk drive. In particular I am bla> trying bla> to detect what the status of the write protect tab is. My problem stems bla> from the fact that I get a write protect error Abort, Retry, Ignore? bla> message bla> when I try to write to a file using fopen and fprintf. I would like to bla> detect the status before I write to the file so that dos doesn't have a bla> chance to display it's error. I have looked in many books and dos bla> manuals bla> for bios calls with no luck. What you are looking for is INT 13H Function 01H. It will return 03H in the AL register if the disk is write protected. However, what it returns is the info from the most recent disk operation, so you would have to call another disk function before calling this one. Perhaps INT 13 Function 00H, reset disk system would be the safest. Hope this helps! Mark -- Mark Tutt - via FidoNet node 1:363/42 UUCP: ARPA: Mark.Tutt@f88.n363.z1.fidonet.org \
martin@iastate.edu (Calsyn Martin Robert) (03/26/91)
In article <351.27EC635A@business.UUCP> Mark.Tutt@f88.n363.z1.fidonet.org (Mark Tutt) writes: > bla> ... My problem stems > bla> from the fact that I get a write protect error Abort, Retry, Ignore? > bla> message You could eliminate this message for other nasty DOS errors like drive not ready, data error, media failure, etc by intercepting the DOS critical error handler - I believe its DOS INT 24H. This interupt is available in more recent (3.30+) versions of MS-DOS. --- Martin R. Calsyn martin@iastate.edu Project Vincent Systems Support gg.mrc@isumvs.bitnet Iowa State University Computation Center voice: (515) 294-9889 Ames, Iowa 50011 fax: (515) 294-1717