Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!cory.Berkeley.EDU!chao
From: chao@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Chia-Chi Chao)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Disk Problem
Message-ID: <16031@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 3 Aug 89 23:07:45 GMT
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: chao@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Chia-Chi Chao)
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Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 18

I have damaged two floppies when writing/copying files.  Fortunately, I was
able to recover most of the data.  I have reproduced this problem on three
computers (PC and AT clones) with DOS 3.2/3.3:

1. Disk #1 with some files, say File1 and File2 -- write protected.
   Disk #2 with File3 and File4 -- not write-protected.
2. Copy File5 to Disk #1 -- but intended for Disk #2.
3. DOS reports write-protect error -- Abort, Retry, Fail?
4. Swap Disk #1 with Disk #2 and use Retry.
5. Disk #2 ends up with unuseable File1 and File2 headers and good File5.
   File3 and File4 are no longer recognized.

I understand that the problem is in writing the FAT of Disk #1 onto Disk #2
without recognizing that the disk was changed.  Is there a patch to eliminate
this problem in DOS (I assume that's the problem), or I just have to be more
careful?

Thanks for any information.    Chia-Chi    chao@cory.berkeley.edu