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From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: MSH
Message-ID: <1163@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca>
Date: 24 Feb 90 21:32:02 GMT
Lines: 43
Return-Path: <lpami!lphillips>
To: van-bc!rnews

In <TNHFS6@drivax.UUCP>, liberato@drivax.UUCP (Jimmy Liberato) writes:
>papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes:
>
>>Has anybody been able to format a MessyDOS disk with the format utility 
>>provided? ... The light stays on, but the cyl and side no. won't advance
>>and nothing gets formatted.
>
>Well, mounting was successful but the above mentioned symptoms still remain
>for me.  What is troubling about this is that the very same thing occurs
>when attempting to use Werner Gunthers 3.5" patch to PCformat/PCcopy and the
>Omni Tool from Project D (allows copying of PC format disks). It also happens
>with games like Shadow of the Beast.  The drive light goes on, stays on, and
>can't be accessed short of rebooting.  Nor can the process be Nuked (GOMF) or
>killed in any way.
>
>I am curious what might be the common thread here.  This is happening on a 
>completely stock B2000 Rev 4.2 .  If anyone is having similar problems please
>contact me.  I would like to narrow down the possible causes.  At this point,
>I'm thinking it must be hardware related.

Double-check your mountlist. I initially had it set to 'Unit = 2' as in the
example mountlist. Since I have only DF0:, I would have expected it to say 'no
disk present' or similar, but it actually looked like it was formatting the
drive. It did a number of differnt things.. sometimes locking up on the first
cylinder, sometimes on the last.

Once I changed the mountlist to be correct, it worked fine.

I just thought I might add that since the filesystem and device are implemented
as a standard Amiga handler and device, it is also possible to read any block
using the DoIO call, as does Sectorama or DEdit, or my disk scanning program.
Neat stuff. Now if I only had a use for it. :-)

-larry

--
Gallium Arsenide is the technology of the future;
  always has been, always will be.
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|   //   Larry Phillips                                                 |
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