ked@garnet.berkeley.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) (07/15/89)
I have an ATT (Olivetti) 6310 AT clone running SCO Xenix/MSDOS 3.3. It has one 1.2 meg drive. I regularly format 5.25 disks to 720 K. These disks work fine under both Xenix and MSDOS on the ATT whether used with tar (linear sector addressing) or MSDOS directories. When I try to transfer these disks to a 286 Zenith (also running MSDOS 3.3), I encounter various problems. With MSDOS directory disks, the dir command (also ls under MKS) will list all the files on the disk but copies and reads fail. With tar disks, sector reads (using int 13) fail after the first track. The absread and biosdisk functions (TURBO C) also fail. Question: Is there any bullet proof way under MSDOS to read/write to a specific head-track-sector UP TO THE PHYSICAL LIMITS OF WHAT THE MEDIA/DRIVE WILL SUPPORT? For extra points: in the absence of something equivalent to the **IX inode, how does one tell under MSDOS whether an output file is also an input file? (I've asked this twice before with ZERO responses. Either it is (a) a very dumb question, not worthy of a response; (b) a real bitch; (c) my posting was ignored. PLEASE REPLY BY POSTING OR MAIL TO THE ADDRESS BELOW: Earl H. Kinmonth History Department University of California, Davis 916-752-1636 (voice, fax [2300-0800 PDT]) 916-752-0776 secretary (bitnet) ehkinmonth@ucdavis.edu (uucp) ucbvax!ucdavis!ucdked!cck (telnet or 916-752-7920) cc-dnet.ucdavis.edu [128.120.2.251] request ucdked, login as guest, no password
barton@holston.UUCP (barton) (07/20/89)
In article <784@biar.UUCP>, jhood@biar.UUCP (John Hood) writes: > (Note the Followup-To:; we're getting rather far from Xenix) > > In article <196500030@trsvax> uhclem@trsvax.UUCP writes: > [stuff about 720k 5.25" disks] > [more stuff about 5.25" drives] > > > >I routinely have to transport data to an older system with 5.25 720K drives > >and my MS-DOS system steadfastly refuses to cooperate. > > > >I haven't tried this with the "real" SCO XENIX floppy driver. > I have used it with tar without any problems. The driver is /dev/rfd096ds9. I don'nt know about other utilities. -- Barton A. Fisk | UUCP: {attctc,texbell,vector}!warble!holston!barton PO Box 1781 | (PSEUDO) DOMAIN: barton@holston.UUCP Lake Charles, La. 70602 | ---------------------------------------- 318-439-5984 | +++++ "Hal, open the pod bay doors" --- Dave