Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!rutgers!sunybcs!bingvaxu!leah!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!ucdavis!uop!exodus From: exodus@uop.edu (G.Onufer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Mediach() function question Message-ID: <1026@uop.edu> Date: 4 Feb 88 08:35:27 GMT References: <8802021912.AA05940@ELI.CS.YALE.EDU> Organization: UoP-- Sun Lab Administration Lines: 23 Summary: BEWARE: Some fast-formatted disks will die too In article <8802021912.AA05940@ELI.CS.YALE.EDU>, fischer-michael@YALE.ARPA (Michael Fischer) writes: > The idea is that a disk cannot be changed without the system noticing > and checking the serial number. If the disk is write protected, > the boot sector will be read more often than necessary but otherwise > no harm is done. Too bad if you are unlucky enough to have two > disks with the same id and you insert one right after the other. > Gemdos will not notice that the disks have been changed and will > happily clobber the second disk if you attempt to write on it since > it will use cached FAT information from the first. Note that this > situation (of duplicate disk ids) will occur with certain copy > programs that copy the entire disk, including the boot sector. Avoid > using them for making backups of ordinary data disks. > > --Mike Fischer > ------- This will happen also if you have formatted your disks with the original version of TWISTER. It never changed the serial numbers on the disks!! If you have the original, call a BBS and get the one called TWISTE.PRG (usually). A patch is also to be found.... Greg Onufer exodus@uop.edu