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From: chris@cooper.cooper.EDU (Chris Lent )
Newsgroups: comp.sources.wanted,alt.msdos.programmer,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Need PC program to copy high dens floppy (commerical or assembly lang.)
Keywords: floppy sector track high density Copy-II/PC BIOS assembly
Message-ID: <2200@cooper.cooper.EDU>
Date: 23 Feb 90 19:21:59 GMT
Organization: The Cooper Union (NY, NY)
Lines: 61


	1024 bytes per sector
	80 tracks
	High Density/Double sided
	Non-MS-DOS format (modified BSD 4.1 UNIX filesystem with
		leading disk configuration block)

	I went out and bought Copy II-PC from Central Point
Software which didn't do what I needed (see end for "War story").  

	A. Does anyone sell a program to copy "copy protected" high-density
disks?  If so what is the product or company name?

	B. Is there any FTP'able assembly language code (or any other
language) to fiddle with a PC BIOS to let me do any of the following?

		I. Read odd-size sector high density disks 
		II. Write similar odd-size high density disks

"War Story":
A. Background:
   The reason I need such a program is the floppy drive on the system
in question is dying.  The system is an old Fortune 32:16 (68000 box)
which we're slowly migrating away from.  Unfortunately the vendor
programs write on the disks during the installation,  recording the
system ID.  The problem is I just don't trust the floppy drive to reliably
do this operation (I've had it fail in the past).  I don't like testing
this each time a new floppy drive is installed as a replacement media
from the vendor takes up to two months to come.

B. Annoyance
   The store and Central Point Software box said that Copy-II
copies "high density disks".  What they didn't bother to mention was
that the program only copies 40 tracks per side! The tracks that
the program did copy were perfect.  I called up Central Point Software
and while I was helped by very knowledgable and pleasant people, the
result was "We are currently considering adding 80 track high density
support to the product". Another case of "Real Soon Now" :-( .
They did offer to refund my money, but I figured I'ld send in 
the warranty card in the hopes that someday a letter will appear in 
the mail telling me my problems are solved. 

C. For people with helpful suggestions:
Things I have tried which haven't worked:

	A. DISKCOPY on MS-DOS after setting the sector size and # of tracks
		slash (/) options in  CONFIG.SYS
	B. Central Point Software's COPY-II/PC
	C. Central Point Software's Hardware PC disk copying card

This doesn't mean I exhausted all possibilities on these solutions but
I did try a good set of them.


Thanks in advance,
Chris Lent
(516) 526-4124
chris@dopey.cooper.edu
philabs!phri!cooper!chris
cmcl2!cooper!chris
   ^------------------That's a lower-case 'L' not a '1'