Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!voder!nsc!amdahl!rtech!cpsc6a!crs
From: crs@cpsc6a.att.com (Chris "I'm Outta Here!" Seaman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: MSH
Message-ID: <2414@cpsc6a.att.com>
Date: 23 Feb 90 18:36:04 GMT
References: <23012@usc.edu> <ROSENBER.90Feb22155759@ra.abo.fi>
Organization: AT&T (CPSC), Oakland, CA
Lines: 61

rosenber@ra.abo.fi (Robin Rosenberg INF) writes:
< >Has anybody been able to format a MessyDOS disk with the format utility   
< >provided? I installed the whole deal, as MS2: (driver df2:) and when I    
< >run format (responding with the defaults to all questions) the light goes 
< >up, it says cyl 0 side 0 and nothing happends.  The light stays on, but   
< >the cyl and side no. won't advance and nothing gets formatted.            
<                                                                           
< For me the cyl and side no did advance and it seemed the disk was formatted.
< BUT, I had to remove and reinsert the disk to make the handler recognize it.
< BUT, when i tried to write stuff nothing were written to the disk. At least
< according to the directory listing.

I have had no trouble formatting fresh disks or previously Amiga formatted
disks.  I have tested them on my 386 MS-DOS box at work, and they work fine.
I use ARP 1.3, but (other than mount) I can't see where that would make a
difference.  BTW, the docs instruct you to remove a newly formatted disk
and re-insert it for the handler to 'see' it.

< I have also noted a few other bugs. MSh seems to set the DirEntry type to an
< illgal value (zero ?) so list and dir lists files on a disk as DIR even though
< they are plain files. Most file requesters report them correctly though. 

If you use ARP's Dir, or ls (I use 3.1), there is not a problem.  Ls is
better anyway, because it doesn't throw a silly requester at you when you
make a typo in a device name (such as typing fd0: instead of df0:).  It
just says "fd0: not found".

< Bug#2: Volume labels longer than eight characters are handled incorrectly,
< i.e they are broken into 8+"."+3 character which causes problems.

This is not a bug, it's a feature :-).  Actaully it is a requirement.  Volume
labels on MS-DOS are treated as a special file (OK, so they're directory
entries, but not real files), and therefore must conform to the MS-DOS filename
template.

< Anyway it's a good attempt. Seems usable if one has a PC to format disks on.
< 
< ------------
< Robin Rosenberg

I use it in conjunction with my office 386 (saves lots of download time
for c.b.a. postings), and have had no problems (well, almost none).  I
can format disks on either machine and have them recognized by the other.

The only repeatable problem I've had so far is that, since MS-DOS disks
don't have a unique time stamp on them (at least through DOS 3.3), if you
have to disks with the same name (or no name), you will only get one WB
icon.  This is really a "non-problem", I suppose, since there is no point
to using MS-DOS disks from WB (although you CAN give your MS-DOS disks
a disk icon).

I also found a rather interesting side-effect.  If you change the mountlist
entry, and add "Mount = 1", all goes well until you try to kill that
copy of the handler with the supplied 'die' program.  Intuition gets
*VERY* confused...

-- 
Chris (Insert phrase here) Seaman |    ___-/^\-___
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