sun@me.utoronto.ca (Andy Sun Anu-guest) (06/29/90)
This is actually a cicrumstantial problem rather than a technical one.
Treat it as a mind boggler (probably a trival one for some) if you like.
A person has 10 360K 5.25" floppies containing backup files from DOS 3.0
backup command. The objective is to restore them to a hard disk. The types
of computers that he has access to are:
(i) machine with one 1.44 Mb 3.5" floppy drive (drive A)
one hard drive running DOS 3.30 (drive C)
(ii) machine with one 720K 3.5" floppy drive (drive A)
one 360K 5.25" floppy drive (drive B)
one hard disk running DOS 3.30 (drive C)
(iii) machine with one 1.2 MB 5.25" floppy drive (drive A)
one 360K 5.25" floppy drive (drive B)
no hard disk
Conditions: - All machines do NOT have the capability of booting from drive B.
- Cannot swap drive cables due to difference in connector types.
- You are allowed to use any software tools but they must exist
in real life, not hypothetical ones.
Assume he has a bootable 5.25" 360K floppy of DOS 3.0 in hand, one
spare 720K 3.5" floppy diskette and 12 360K 5.25" floppies, is it possible
to restore those backup files (either to hard disk or to floppies)? And if
yes, how? I know there has been discussions on this group awhile ago on
booting from drive B. If such a beast in software does exist, machine (ii)
alone can do the job of course. But does it really exist? And if not, how
this problem can be solved?
Andy