chris@cooper.cooper.EDU (Chris Lent ) (02/24/90)
1024 bytes per sector 80 tracks High Density/Double sided Non-MS-DOS format (modified BSD 4.1 UNIX filesystem with leading disk configuration block) I went out and bought Copy II-PC from Central Point Software which didn't do what I needed (see end for "War story"). A. Does anyone sell a program to copy "copy protected" high-density disks? If so what is the product or company name? B. Is there any FTP'able assembly language code (or any other language) to fiddle with a PC BIOS to let me do any of the following? I. Read odd-size sector high density disks II. Write similar odd-size high density disks "War Story": A. Background: The reason I need such a program is the floppy drive on the system in question is dying. The system is an old Fortune 32:16 (68000 box) which we're slowly migrating away from. Unfortunately the vendor programs write on the disks during the installation, recording the system ID. The problem is I just don't trust the floppy drive to reliably do this operation (I've had it fail in the past). I don't like testing this each time a new floppy drive is installed as a replacement media from the vendor takes up to two months to come. B. Annoyance The store and Central Point Software box said that Copy-II copies "high density disks". What they didn't bother to mention was that the program only copies 40 tracks per side! The tracks that the program did copy were perfect. I called up Central Point Software and while I was helped by very knowledgable and pleasant people, the result was "We are currently considering adding 80 track high density support to the product". Another case of "Real Soon Now" :-( . They did offer to refund my money, but I figured I'ld send in the warranty card in the hopes that someday a letter will appear in the mail telling me my problems are solved. C. For people with helpful suggestions: Things I have tried which haven't worked: A. DISKCOPY on MS-DOS after setting the sector size and # of tracks slash (/) options in CONFIG.SYS B. Central Point Software's COPY-II/PC C. Central Point Software's Hardware PC disk copying card This doesn't mean I exhausted all possibilities on these solutions but I did try a good set of them. Thanks in advance, Chris Lent (516) 526-4124 chris@dopey.cooper.edu philabs!phri!cooper!chris cmcl2!cooper!chris ^------------------That's a lower-case 'L' not a '1'