Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!nikhefh!t68
From: t68@nikhefh.hep.nl (Jos Vermaseren)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Changing  to / in TOS
Message-ID: <433@nikhefh.hep.nl>
Date: 15 Feb 88 10:36:31 GMT
References: <1988Jan29.130047.18554@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> <969@atari.UUCP> <379@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> <4804@ihlpg.ATT.COM> <432@nikhefh.hep.nl>
Reply-To: t68@nikhefh.hep.nl (Jos Vermaseren)
Organization: Nikhef-H, Amsterdam (the Netherlands).
Lines: 20

Whatever you do: A mediach to a hard disk can be rather destructive:

All open files, half written etc, all modified but not yet written FAT
clusters and more is lost when a media change is sensed by Gemdos.
Gemdos does use some limited caching, especially for FATs.

If you like to execute a mediachange (well... simulate one) you need to
control the circumstances rather well and make absolutely sure there is
nothing hanging around anymore.
The FATs can be taken care of by executing a Dfree before and after the
change operation, while the rest is reasonably safe when a directory
with more than 32 files is listed (before and after!).

I do prefer foldrxxx because I don't like to make the one fatal mistake
that blows up my disk, and also the trick with the media change has to
be executed regularly, so one has to monitor the folder limit
continuously.

Jos Vermaseren,
T68@nikhefh.hep.nl