adp1@csug.cs.reading.ac.uk (03/12/90)
Hello, A)... I tried yesterday to write a program to read in the FAT table and the root directory off a disk using the Rwabs(..) call in sozobon C. It seemed to do this fine on disks A and B, but an attempt to do this off my hard disk caused a crash/lockup on the Rwabs call. I understand that some problem with Rwabs has been discussed in this group, but I must have missed it. Could some kind soul send me a summary of what the discussion was about and/or tell me if I am doing anything stupid!!! B)... The aforemetioned hard drive is one that I have just obtained. It is a Power Computing Series 900 Drive (48Mb 28ms). It came with an external power supply with a 2 pin round pin plug on it!!). It seems to have some kind of clock in it, but it is really strange, it seems to remember the time and date at which it was turned off at, as long as the length of time isn't longer than about a day! It seems to require 2 attempts at booting after being turned on for the first time, however long you wait before powering up the ST, and after resetting the ST the screen flickers horrendously (like putting the screen to 60Hz mode) before it boots and restores the white blank screen. Has anybody else got any experience with this make of drive, and if so could they let me know if it does similar things. Thanks, Andrew. ================================================================================ | Andrew Pollard | adp1@uk.ac.reading.cs.csug | | Dept of Computer Science | adp1%uk.ac.reading.cs.csug@uk.ac.nsfnet-relay | | Reading University | | | England | | ================================================================================
wallace@oldtmr.enet.dec.com (Ray Wallace) (03/14/90)
In article <2121@onion.reading.ac.uk>, adp1@csug.cs.reading.ac.uk writes... >A)... > I tried yesterday to write a program to read in the FAT table and the root >directory off a disk using the Rwabs(..) call in sozobon C. It seemed to do ... I can upload some code that does this if you like. It is not usefull per se, it just reads the fats on a specified disk and looks for sectors marked bad in the FAT. Works on floppies and hard disks. Let me know if you want to see it. >B)... ... >with a 2 pin round pin plug on it!!). It seems to have some kind of clock in >it, but it is really strange, it seems to remember the time and date at which >it was turned off at, as long as the length of time isn't longer than about a By the sounds of it it does not have a a built in clock (or at least you are not making use of it). I have had the same thing happen with an external floppy drive connected. I think what is happening is that enough power is bleeding back through the DMA/floppy cable back into the ST. The power level is just enough to keep some memory (presumably in the IKB) from loosing the time which stored in it. This is all just a guess of course... --- Ray Wallace (INTERNET,UUCP) wallace@oldtmr.enet.dec.com (UUCP) ...!decwrl!oldtmr.enet!wallace (INTERNET) wallace%oldtmr.enet@decwrl.dec.com ---
cs325ec@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (03/16/90)
You must first do a call to get_bpb before attempting an Rwabs to the hard drive. You should also use 0x10|rwfkag when using Rwabs on the hard drive. From my experience anyway. P.S. Supra & ICD have told me that their drivers support using -1 for secno and an added long on the stack to read physical sectors. - Greg
cjr@cs.bham.ac.uk (Chris Ridd <RiddCJ>) (03/18/90)
In article <2121@onion.reading.ac.uk> adp1@csug.cs.reading.ac.uk writes: > Hello, > > A)... > I tried yesterday to write a program to read in the FAT table and the root > directory off a disk using the Rwabs(..) call in sozobon C. It seemed to do > this fine on disks A and B, but an attempt to do this off my hard disk caused > a crash/lockup on the Rwabs call. > [deleted] > Andrew. Could someone give a short description of the parameters to Rwabs? All the ones I've seen say something like the device number is: 0 Floppy A: 1 Floppy B: 2+ Hard disks/networks etc So, if I wanted to read some sector on drive D:, what would I give? Thanks! Chris -- Chris Ridd, Computer Science, Birmingham Uni, UK -- RiddCJ@Cs.Bham.Ac.Uk -- "'It's going to look pretty good, then, isn't it,' said War testily, 'the One Horseman and Three Pedestrians of the Apocralypse.'" - Sourcery