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From: urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Controlling a disk drive
Message-ID: <s5e]e2.yvb@smurf.sub.org>
Date: 19 Aug 90 22:03:58 GMT
References: <1517@ntmtv.UUCP> <9794@goofy.Apple.COM> <1990Aug17.141156.7785@eng.umd.edu>
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, FRG
Lines: 29

In comp.sys.mac.programmer, article <1990Aug17.141156.7785@eng.umd.edu>,
  russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto) writes:
< Here's a related question:  How can I grab control of a specific disk drive?
<(Right now what I do is never call Get/Wait NextEvent, don't use any resources
<in the critical section, and don't allow single-drive use)
< 
Assuming that the driver knows about its entries in the drive queue, as
opposed to searching for them at every _Prime and _Control call (IMHO a very
reasonable assumption, but stranger things have been programmed), then what
I'd try in that situation is to _UnmountVol the disk which might be in that
drive, and then temporarily remove it from the drive queue.

Disclaimer:
I didn't do this yet -- it sounds reasonable but there may be problems.

<Also, is there any way I can get a descriptive name for a specific floppy drive
<(for instance 1: Bottom drive 2: Top drive 3: External drive, but without 
<hard-coding that).

Why not use the physical icons?
There's a documented Control call to get them...
After the icon, there's supposed to be some descriptive text.
If not, look at the bytes immediately after the "normal" icon.
If still not, hard-code some reasonable strings, but _please_ put them into
 resources!

-- 
Matthias Urlichs -- urlichs@smurf.sub.org -- urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de
Humboldtstrasse 7 - 7500 Karlsruhe 1 - FRG -- +49+721+621127(Voice)/621227(PEP)