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From: kaz@cadovax.UUCP (Kerry Zimmerman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: problems with AWRITE and virtural drives
Message-ID: <1851@cadovax.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 7-Nov-87 15:39:40 EST
Article-I.D.: cadovax.1851
Posted: Sat Nov  7 15:39:40 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 10-Nov-87 06:43:18 EST
References: <1840@cadovax.UUCP> <2692@cbmvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: kaz@cadovax.UUCP (Kerry Zimmerman)
Organization: Contel Business Systems, Torrance, CA
Lines: 42
Keywords: AWRITE A2000 virtual MS_DOS drive

In article <2692@cbmvax.UUCP> andy@cbmvax.UUCP (Andy Finkel) writes:
>In article <1840@cadovax.UUCP> kaz@cadovax.UUCP (Kerry Zimmerman) writes:
>>I can create a virtual drive on an amiga device, and copy files into it
>>from the bridge side (using MS-DOS copy) or from the Amiga side, using
>>AREAD.  What I cannot do is use AWRITE to copy files from the virtual
>>drive over to an Amiga drive.   What I end up with is an entry for the
>
>There is but one interrupt used for aread/awrite and virtual
>disk communication between the PC and the Amiga.  Therefore,
>either a virtual disk on the Amiga side may be set up or
>aread/awrite may be used; not both.  (sorry)
>
I'm sorry to hear this too.  However, the documentation makes no
mention of this limitation.  Also, the result of trying to awrite from
a virtual drive is very nasty.  First, there is an entry placed in the
AmigaDos directory, but you can't delete, read or write to the file
until you reboot the Amiga.  Second, the virtual drive now gives MS-DOS
drive errors (doing DIR, for example) until you unlink and relink the
virtual drive (using jlink, of course).

I classify this behavior has a BUG.  It would be much better to have
awrite bail out with an error message then, just "finish" leaving
garbage in both the MS-DOS and the AmigaDos file systems.  Please
repair this soon.

By the way, there is a slight error in the bridgecard manual.  It says
jlink creates virtual drives d: e: f: and g:.  But, when I run jlink,
it shows and will create drives c: d: e: and f:.

I should mention that I found out how to copy (or awrite) from one disk
to another using a single drive MS-DOS system.  The answer was in a one
page appendix of the MS-DOS manual.  All you do is tell it to copy to
the non-existant B: drive.  (eg copy a:foo b:foo).  MS-DOS will stop
and ask you to strike a key when ready, allowing you to swap disks,
then actually copy to the a: drive.  It seems a kludge, but works.

Thanks for your quick responses to my questions, Andy.
(still waiting for the hd.device you sent)
Kerry Zimmerman
#  {ucbvax,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!kaz  Contel Business Systems 213-323-8170
A difference between an amateur and a professional, 
is that a professional has the right tools.