Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ncar!tank!oddjob!gargoyle!att!chinet!les
From: les@chinet.UUCP (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.att
Subject: Re: Minor fix to Mtools patch for 3.5" disks
Message-ID: <6379@chinet.UUCP>
Date: 25 Aug 88 14:56:22 GMT
References: <611@bacchus.UUCP> <56@gnosys.UUCP> <320@uncle.UUCP>
Reply-To: les@chinet.UUCP (Leslie Mikesell)
Distribution: na
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 21

In article <320@uncle.UUCP> jbm@uncle.UUCP (John B. Milton) writes:
 
>One thing that is missing (I am assuming now that EVERYONE has Emmet Gray's
>mtools) is a command "minit" that will write an empty boot block, FAT (switch
>for size code), DIR, and optional volume label. Once we have this tool, we can
>convert any UNIXpc disk to an MS-DOS disk quickly. We can also fix one that
>got trashed.

Why not just "dd" an appropriate number of sectors from a freshly formatted
MSDOS disk into a unix file, then reverse the operation to create new
MSDOS disks?  (The real problem is the inability to write a 9-sector low-level
format in the first place, though).
I also found that you can do this on a 3B2 by first creating a 720K format
MSDOS disk with the last track contained in a hidden file.  Mtools works
fine (although it always sees the hidden file) and the disk can also be
used in a 6386WGS HD drive.  I haven't tried any other AT type drives
but I understand that some BIOS implementations have trouble with the
720K format and try to double-step.  Locking out the last track is necessary
on the 3B2 because it is used by the driver (perhaps to determine which of
the one possible formats are in use???).

Les Mikesell