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CrossDOS Plus Version 5.06 This manual describes any changes, highlights and special features for this version and revision of CrossDOS Plus. TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- New features in this Release Running CrossDOS or CrossPC from the Product Disk Installing CrossDOS or CrossPC Undocumented CrossPC Features Configuring an MS-DOS Hard Drive Changes from Versions 3 and 4 of CrossDOS Notes for Floptical Users Manual Corrections Troubleshooting - CrossDOS Electronic Registration Technical Support Electronic Bulletin Board Service Copyrights, Disclaimers and Trademarks NEW FEATURES IN THIS RELEASE ---------------------------- Improvements - CrossDOS Improvements - CrossPC Improvements - Configure an MS-DOS Hard Drive Improvements - Dr CrossDOS Improvements - Install Improvements - READ.ME Improvements - CrossDOS CrossDOS now has its own disk icon! When CrossDOS recognizes an MS-DOS disk, a disk icon appears with "CrossDOS TM" on the label. That's not all! If you are using 2.0 or higher, opening the disk icon will display icons for files and directories without needing to perform a Show/All Files first. We now support disks formatted to 10 sectors per track used primarily on Atari systems. Improvements - CrossPC We've significantly increased the speed of the serial port emulation. Our tests show the serial port to be reliable up to the baud rates on the machines listed below. Machine CPU Speed CPU Type Baud ------------------------------------- A3000 25MHZ 68030 38.4K A500 7MHz 68000 4.8K Your machine may exhibit higher or lower values depending on your configuration. The general rule-of-thumb to use is: the more CPU power, the faster the speed. We've successfully used the following communication programs on CrossPC. Procomm Telix Compuserve Information Manager Prodigy Laplink We now display the information in the CrossPC debug window on the PC screen at boot time. We've increased the MS-DOS hard drive speed by about 10%. We've improved the mouse driver emulation to be compatible with more PC applications. Improvements - Configure an MS-DOS Hard Drive We've improved the MS-DOS hard drive configuration program. It now tries to support drives that are non-RigidDiskBlock formatted. It also displays more information at each step for your peace of mind. Improvements - Dr CrossDOS We've made Dr CrossDOS more intelligent in its diagnosis. If you're having difficulties, please use it before calling our technical support line. Improvements - Install We now provide an Uninstall option to try to remove as many files associated with CrossDOS and CrossPC as we can find. Use this option sparingly. There is NO need to do an uninstall before doing an install or reinstall. A reinstall will copy over the earlier releases of files with later releases. Improvements - READ.ME We have converted our READ.ME files into AmigaGuide documents for easier searches. RUNNING CROSSDOS OR CROSSPC FROM THE PRODUCT DISK ------------------------------------------------- Both CrossDOS and CrossPC can be executed from this product disk (particularly if you are running on a floppy based system). Just double-click on the appropriate icon. To start: double-click on the "PC0" icon. Your internal floppy drive will now be configured as an MS-DOS drive with the name "PC0:". You can now read and write preformatted MS-DOS disks. If you need to format an MS-DOS disk, double-click on the Format icon in the system drawer. Choose the device to format from the device list and answer any of the questions and options given. Double-clicking on the CrossPC icon begins the PC-XT emulation. Place an MS-DOS 720K boot disk in your internal drive and it should boot up. (Please note that 68000 users are only configured with 256K of PC memory in the emulation.) It's that simple. INSTALLING CROSSDOS OR CROSSPC ------------------------------ You may choose to install both products using the Install program on the disk. This is particularly efficient if you have a hard drive. If you do wish to install, DO NOT move the files over manually! The Install program makes many intelligent choices depending on your system configuration. Once installed, you can use most features immediately. A few features such as MS-DOS hard disk access may require additional operations be performed before you use it. For further information see Configuring an MS-DOS Hard Drive UNDOCUMENTED CROSSPC FEATURES ----------------------------- New ToolTypes Obsolete ToolTypes Mouse Software New ToolTypes Although CrossPC and CrossDOS can share data from the same MS-DOS disk, there can be problems if it is accessed at the same time. To reduce this risk significantly, we implemented a 'lockout' feature as the default when using CrossPC. When CrossPC is running with a CrossDOS device (such as PC0: or PCC:) we disable access to it from the Amiga side. When CrossPC is rebooted (CTRL-ALT-DEL), it will free the CrossDOS devices to be used by the Amiga. If you wish to share the disks simultaneously between CrossPC and CrossDOS you can set the DISKSHARE ToolType in the CrossPC icon. CAUTION: If the proper precautions are not followed YOU WILL CORRUPT THE DISK. See Appendix C in the manual called Hard Drive Considerations for an in-depth discussion about this problem. It is recommended that you do not use DISKSHARE unless you are confident you know what you are doing. Since AmigaDOS and CrossPC both don't know when the other is writing to the drive, it is possible to corrupt your floppy or hard drive partition, losing some or all of your data. If you do need to use the partition from both AmigaDOS and CrossPC simultaneously, remember that whenever you write to the disk, you must make the other operating system aware that you have changed the disk. Under AmigaDOS a Diskchange command to the drive will work, under MS-DOS a CTRL-C or executing CHKDSK has a similar effect. STARTPRI=xx The default priority of CrossPC is -10. By specifying STARTPRI=xx in the ToolTypes of the CrossPC icon, the priority of CrossPC is set to xx. The limits for this are -100 to 0. CrossPC will ensure that the priority is between these two limits. Increasing the priority may not provide you any more speed unless you are running other tasks. You will probably never need to use this ToolType. Obsolete ToolTypes CPU1 (Manual Edition 1 only) This is no longer used. If it is present, it is ignored. The only use for the CPU1 ToolType was if you had an early GVP accelerator card. Now CrossPC automatically detects this, and executes the appropriate code. If you do have one of these GVP cards, CrossPC will state that it is using CPU type 68010 instead of 68030. Mouse Software It is no longer necessary to use MOUSE.COM. The equivalent code is executed whenever RightAmiga-Help is pressed. This makes it easier to use the mouse if you haven't put MOUSE.COM onto an MS-DOS disk. MOUSE.COM is still useful if you want the mouse to be enabled automatically from the AUTOEXEC.BAT. You can disable the mouse driver by pressing RightAmiga-Shift-Help. We recommend that you do not enable or disable the mouse within an application. This insures for proper recognition of the mouse by applications. NOTE: PC applications that can use the mouse REQUIRE that the mouse driver be active before executing the application. CONFIGURING AN MS-DOS HARD DRIVE -------------------------------- CrossDOS and CrossPC now support MS-DOS formatted hard drives. If the drive you configure is already formatted, there are certain hard drive formats that are not 'true' MS-DOS. In this case, we do our best to decipher the disk but 'all bets are off'. We do require that you install both products using our Install program. Also, select Configure MS-DOS Hard Disk for CrossDOS & CrossPC to have us try to create a proper mountfile to match. You will be asked in the Install program whether you want to configure one of two types of hard disks. One: A 'true' MS-DOS hard disk configured as the entire disk. This type is useful if you wish to transfer data between the Amiga and a stand-alone PC. We do HIGHLY recommend that this type of hard disk be formatted on the PC first then brought to the Amiga for configuring. Two: An 'image' of an MS-DOS hard disk within an Amiga hard disk partition. This type is particularly useful with CrossPC. Once the hard drive is configured, DO NOT use our Format command or the standard Amiga Format command to format it. Instead, treat it like an unformatted MS-DOS hard disk. This means you must use the FDISK and FORMAT commands provided by MS-DOS to partition and format the hard disk respectively. Failure to heed this warning may cause unpredictable results. For example, if the configured hard disk is to be used with CrossPC, perform the following steps: 1. Execute CrossPC and boot off an MS-DOS boot floppy. 2. Run FDISK to partition your configured hard drive. It will reset CrossPC after FDISK. 3. Execute CrossPC and boot off an MS-DOS boot floppy again. 4. Run "Format C: /s/v" to format the C: partition and place system files on it. 5. Transfer other files from the MS-DOS boot floppy to the C: partition. 6. Reboot CrossPC you should be able to boot off your hard drive. For further information refer to Appendix C in the manual Hard Drive Considerations that discusses the different hard drive types and special considerations. CHANGES FROM VERSIONS 3 AND 4 OF CROSSDOS ----------------------------------------- This section is important for users who have an earlier version of CrossDOS. There have been changes to CrossDOS for a multitude of reasons. These reasons range from efficiency, speed, robustness and more. We hope you like the changes. Most of the code is more efficient in both speed and code size. Those code pieces that are larger are due to feature additions. The CrossDOS product has two versions of code for most of its programs. One version is Amiga 1.3 and 2.0 compatible. The other is 2.0 ONLY compatible (identified by a ".2" on the end of the name). The 1.3/2.0 code is fatter, as you would guess, and generally has a few less features. We recommend that you install CrossDOS on the operating system version you wish to run on. If you wish to use it under both operating systems, you should install it under 1.3. New CrossDOS Utilities We've Renamed the Default Floppy Devices MountMF is Gone! MFORMAT, MDISKCOPY and Kill are History! TxFilter and IntlTrans have been Combined! TDPatch12 and TDPatch13 New File System Name The file system code (the cornerstone of the CrossDOS product) has changed name from MSDOSFILESYSTEM to CrossDOSFileSystem. If you install CrossDOS onto your system we will copy this new file system to your L: directory. We also copy this same code to L:MSDOSFileSystem so that your old configuration may still work. We've Renamed the Default Floppy Devices The old MS-DOS devices defaulted to the names DI0: through DI3:. We now use PC0: through PC3:. If you like the old names better, all you have to do is rename the mountfile from PC0 to DI0. This rule applies to the other devices too. You can name the floppy mountfiles to virtually any name that does not conflict with any other device name. New CrossDOS Utilities We include new utilities to support CrossDOS better as well as benefit the entire Amiga system. We have utilities such as Mount, Format and DiskCopy that are designed to replace the system utilities of the same name. They will operate on MS-DOS disks as well as Amiga disks. They operate just as the commands they are replacing but they have some additional features to make life easier. Although they are designed to replace the standard Amiga utilities, you can elect to rename these utilities to CDMOUNT, CDFORMAT and CDDISKCOPY. We recommend that you replace your system commands to utilize these commands to the fullest. MountMF is Gone! We've replaced this command with an advanced Mount command that uses mountfiles. It can be used by either double-clicking on the mountfile (such as PC0) or executing a mount of all the devices in a drawer at boot time (we can do this in the Install program). We do not encourage using MountMF but we do have a new replacement for it. Our install program will try to find your old MountMF and replace it. This allows you to use it if it is already used in a boot script. MFORMAT, MDISKCOPY and Kill are History! MFormat and MDiskCopy have been replaced with the full-featured Format and DiskCopy respectively. Alternate floppy formats used with MFormat have been replaced by special project icons located in the system/Alt_Formats drawer. We do not encourage using these alternate formats unless you have to. The Format utility will automatically sense the optimum disk format unless you override it by using one of these alternate formats. We also recommend it be used from the product disk. Refer to the READ.ME file in that drawer for more information. The Kill utility has been somewhat dangerous to use in the past and it is now somewhat useless. CrossDOS is now more efficient. If there is no MS-DOS disk in the drives, we try to deallocate all the memory we can. In fact, CrossDOS uses no CHIP memory unless it senses an MS-DOS floppy disk in the drive. Our Install program will delete these files as well as the project icons that are associated with them (such as Kill.DI0). TxFilter and IntlTrans have been Combined! We've combined the functions for setting the text filters and international translation tables. In fact, they should be even easier to use with more features. These functions have been combined into a commodity called CrossDOS located in your system drawer. Refer to the manual in Chapter 4 for more details. Our Install program will delete TxFilter and IntlTrans as well as the project icons that are associated with them. TDPatch12 and TDPatch13 The trackdisk.device code resident in Kickstart code versions 1.2 and 1.3 has a couple bugs that need fixing as well as adding a new feature found in version 2.0 of the trackdisk.device. TDPatch12 and TDPatch13 correct this problem for KickStart V1.2 and V1.3 respectively. The installation program will detect the version of KickStart you are running and transfer the proper patch version to your C: directory. The mfm.device will automatically execute this file for you if it is needed. NOTE: TDPatch will not work in conjunction with NOCLICK or TRACKSALVE or the Applied Engineering device driver earlier then Version 1.2. we supply a small program called KillClick (in the diag drawer) to stop the 'clicking' on the drive for KickStart 2.0 ONLY! NOTES FOR FLOPTICAL USERS ------------------------- CrossDOS and CrossPC now support floptical drives. If you do not know if you have a floptical drive you probably don't have one. A floptical drive can support the MS-DOS 720K, 1.44M and its own 20M floptical disk format. It can also support an Amiga 20M hard drive format. We do recommend that you install both products using our Install program. Also, select the Configure MS-DOS Hard Disk for CrossDOS and CrossPC to allow us to attempt to create a proper mountfile. When you are configuring the floptical, make sure you have a preformatted MS-DOS disk in the drive at the time. Any MS-DOS disk should do (such as an 720K disk). This is needed to sense the proper information from the drive. Formatting with the floptical drive is slightly different too. This is because the floptical cannot properly sense the size of the unformatted disk in the drive. There are two ways to format in the floptical drive. One: Insert a preformatted MS-DOS disk in the drive with the same formatted size as you want to format. If you want to format a 1.44M disk, for example, insert a preformatted MS-DOS 1.44M disk in the drive first. Then, execute the Format program. Proceed with the program until you come the requester that says "Ok to format volume ... " then insert the actual disk to be formatted and proceed. Two: Double-click on the format project icon in the :system/Alt_Formats drawer that corresponds to the desired format. For example, double-click on the MSDOS 720K.Format icon to 'force' the format of the disk to 720K. Proceed through the format. Choose the method that makes you comfortable. Experimentation is your best teacher. NOTE: At this time, GVP controllers will not permit a format of a blank floppy using the Format program. In order to low-level format a blank floppy you need to use their FAAASTPREP program, select "Manual Installation" then select "Low Level Format". When completed, exit FAAASTPREP and perform a Format with the "Quick Format" option. MANUAL CORRECTIONS ------------------ The following is a list of important manual corrections to editions 1 and 2. Manual Edition 2 can be identified by the last line on the title page (first page after the front cover). Manual Edition 1 can be identified by the lack of any edition text on the title page. Manual Edition 1 Manual Edition 2 Manual Edition 1 Chapter 1; Section Getting Started - CrossDOS; Page 6; the Install program cannot be run from the CLI. Chapter 3; Section Using CrossDOS; Page 10; The section about showing icons on MS-DOS disks using the Show/All Files of the Windows menu is not necessary under 2.0. Default icons are automatically displayed. See Improvements - CrossDOS for further information. Chapter 5; Section Troubleshooting - CrossDOS; Page 29; the heading to the fourth paragraph should read "DF0:BAD or DF0:????" Chapter 7; Section Getting Started - CrossPC; Page 36; the Install program cannot be run from the CLI. Chapter 9; Section Tech Notes - CrossPC; Page 41; the last paragraph, last sentence should read "For hard disks, DosType should be set to 0x4D534800." Chapter 9; Section Tech Notes - CrossPC; Page 50; Item 5 should read: 5. Start CrossPC with an MS-DOS boot floppy. Run FDISK. After you partition the disk, CrossPC will reboot. Chapter 9; Section Tech Notes - CrossPC; Page 50; Add the following: 7. You will need to format each partition you created with FDISK. To format the C: partition to be bootable execute the following command Format C: /s/v 8. You can now reboot CrossPC and you should be able to boot off the C: partition on your newly allocated hard drive. Manual Edition 2 Chapter 3; Section Using CrossDOS; Page 10; The section about showing icons on MS-DOS disks using the Show/All Files of the Windows menu is not necessary under 2.0. Default icons are automatically displayed. See Improvements - CrossDOS for further information. Chapter 8; Section Tech Notes - CrossPC; Page 46; the second to last paragraph second sentence should have the phrase LeftAmiga-Help changed to RightAmiga-Help. TROUBLESHOOTING - CROSSDOS -------------------------- Here are some ideas to help you should you have trouble using CrossDOS. General Ensure you have configured the drive in which you wish to use the MS-DOS disk by Mounting it. The device names correspond to the device names given by Commodore. For example, PC0: is the MS-DOS device name corresponding to DF0: and PC1: is the MS-DOS device name corresponding to DF1:. Avoid file names longer than 8 characters. Avoid file extensions longer than 3 characters. Avoid space in file names or file extensions. Make sure you do not mix disk types and format types. For example, do not do a low density format on a high density disk or visa versa. Do not try to read a high density formatted disk in a low density drive. When using Workbench, avoid transferring files with file extensions. Rename them first if necessary. Ensure the file formats you want to use between both the Amiga program and the MS-DOS program are compatible. For example, an Amiga FinalCopy file is not readable by an MS-DOS WordPerfect wordprocessor. Should you exhibit read or write errors with no specific pattern, try cleaning the floppy drive heads of both the Amiga and MS-DOS computers. The easiest way to check an MS-DOS disk from the Amiga is to run the DiskChk program included with CrossDOS. The following is a list of most of the CrossDOS error codes. Error Messages No. Name Description 1 IOERR_OPENFAIL device/unit failed to open 2 IOERR_ABORTED request aborted 3 IOERR_NOCMD command not supported 4 IOERR_BADLENGTH not a valid data length 20 TDERR_NotSpecified general catchall error code 21 TDERR_NoSecHdr couldn't find any sectors on track 22 TDERR_BadSecPreamble bad sector header 23 TDERR_BadSecID bad sector header 24 TDERR_BadHdrSum sector header had incorrect CRC 25 TDERR_BadSecSum data had incorrect CRC 26 TDERR_TooFewSecs couldn't find enough sectors 27 TDERR_BadSecHdr bad sector header 28 TDERR_WriteProt can't write to a protected disk 29 TDERR_DiskChanged no disk in the drive 30 TDERR_SeekError couldn't find track 0 31 TDERR_NoMem ran out of memory 32 TDERR_BadUnitNum asked for a unit > 3 33 TDERR_BadDriveType not a recognized drive 34 TDERR_DriveInUse someone else allocated the drive 35 TDERR_PostReset user hit reset; awaiting doom 36 MDERR_OutofTracks out of physical tracks 37 MDERR_InvParam invalid parameter (MD_SETPARMS) 38 MDERR_IndexNotSync index signal not available 39 MDERR_WrongTrack drive head on wrong physical track Possible Problems and Solutions I changed the MS-DOS disk on the 5 1/4" drive and still get the old directory from the previous disk. The 5 1/4" drive doesn't support the disk change signal. When you change disks, execute the CLI DiskChange command or our DiskChg command on the drive before your next access of the new disk. I copied a file to an MS-DOS disk but can't find it when reading the disk on my PC. Avoid using spaces in file names. The MS-DOS computer ignores everything after the space character. I opened the MS-DOS disk from Workbench but I see none of the files that I know are there. MS-DOS files don't usually have icon files associated with each file. The Amiga uses these icon files to draw the icons in Workbench. You can access the files by either selecting the Window/Show/All Files from the Workbench menu (not available under 1.3) or use any application file requester or directory utility. Improvements - CrossDOS DF0:BAD. or DF0:???? This is OK. The task that handles the AmigaDOS device called DF0: can't recognize foreign disk formats such as MS-DOS. Disk Ejected Too Soon. Disk removed before all information was written to it. Put the disk back into the drive and Retry might recover without corruption. We recommend you wait at least 3 seconds from the last disk access before removing the disk. Disk Full. Exceeded the capacity of the system disk. Remove unnecessary files from the disk. Error=-4. TDPatch13 needs to be applied. Ensure you aren't running NoClick or TrackSalve. TDPatch12 and TDPatch13 Error=21. Could not find any sectors on the specified track. Probably not an MS-DOS standard density formatted disk readable by your drive. Error=22. Sector not aligned with index signal from disk. Usually not disastrous. Retry might recover. Error=23. Sector not found. Disk might be corrupt. Retry might recover. Error=24. Sector identification information corrupt. Retry might recover. Error=25. Sector data might be corrupt. Retry might recover. Error=38. Index signal from the drive not received. Amiga needs service to correct a hardware problem. Not a DOS Disk. Ensure the disk is an MS-DOS disk capable of being read by your drive. The disk may be an AmigaDOS disk or MS-DOS high density formatted disk in a low density drive. TECHNICAL SUPPORT ----------------- Electronic Registration We would like you to help us in reducing the errors. Errors are caused by manually entering product registration information into our database. This occurs primarily because hand printing may be somewhat hard to decipher. Our electronic registration is available through the install program or by double-clicking on the Register icon. Fill in the correct information requested and print it off by selecting the "Print and Save" button. Send the printed registration sheet and the Proof-of-Purchase card to the address listed on the sheet. Technical Support Should you have any difficulties, double-click on the program Dr CrossDOS. It will try to diagnose the problem. If you are still having difficulties you can contact us at: CONSULTRON 8959 Ridge Rd Plymouth, MI 48170-3213 (313) 459-7271 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM EST Weekdays NOTE: Make sure you send in your product registration with Proof-of-Purchase card. We will send you a Product Certificate with a unique Customer Identification Number. You must use this number when calling or corresponding for technical support. No technical support will be given without this number. ELECTRONIC BULLETIN BOARD SERVICE --------------------------------- We've provided an electronic bulletin board service to better serve you. It may contain update patches should there be any. Other public domain or shareware files are available that may be useful to you. We also have demo versions of most of our programs that allow you to "try before you buy". The telephone number of our BBS is: (313) 459-7271 6:00 PM - 10:00 AM EST Weekdays and all day on weekends and U.S. holidays Our service is 2400 baud 8N1 Thank you. Copyrights, Disclaimers and Trademarks COPYRIGHTS ---------- CrossDOSFileSystem, mfm.device, MountMF, TDPatch12, TDPatch13, DiskChk, DiskChg, Registration, ConfigDisk, Install, Dr_CrossDOS (c) Copyright 1988-1993 CONSULTRON. All Rights Reserved. CrossPC (c) Copyright 1992-1993 IBeM Distributors. All Rights Reserved. Reproduced and distributed under license from IBeM Distributors. Mount, DiskCopy, Format, CrossDOS, Installer and Installer project icon, AmigaGuide, amigaguide.library, (c) Copyright 1991-93 Commodore-Amiga, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduced and distributed under license from Commodore. gadtools13.library (c) Copyright 1992 Dreamers Guild, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduced and distributed under license from Dreamers Guild, Inc. DISCLAIMERS GADTOOLS13.LIBRARY, MOUNT, FORMAT, DISKCOPY, INSTALLER AND AMIGAGUIDE SOFTWARE ARE PROVIDED "AS-IS" AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE; NO WARRANTIES ARE MADE. ALL USE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. NO LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY IS ASSUMED. TRADEMARKS CrossDOS and CrossPC are trademarks of CONSULTRON. AmigaGuide is a trademark of Commodore-Amiga, Inc. CrossDOS Plus -- Alternate Floppy Formats ----------------------------------------- The advanced Format utility (the 1.3/2.0 version only) allows a different format to be forced on an MS-DOS floppy disk. Forcing a format on other disk types such as AmigaDOS will not succeed. Forcing a format is optional. Normally the Format utility will format the disk to the optimal size. If you can, don't force a alternate format. If you do need to force a format, make sure you know what type of disk you are planning to use. Forcing a format will override disk size checking. Floptical drive users may need to force a disk format because the software mechanisms for checking the size of the media in the drive are not available. Follow one of the two procedures detailed in the section Notes for Floptical Users for formatting disks. We recommend that if you must force a format, that you use the icons on the product disk. Installed versions can be used if the 1.3/2.0 version of the Format command is installed. Alternate Format Types The following are the types of alternate formats supported. Double-click on the icon that matches the format desired. Do not modify any of the ToolTypes in the icon. This may result in an improper format. MSDOS 720K.Format This is the standard format for an MS-DOS 3 1/2" low density disk. If you are using the standard Amiga drive don't use this icon but rather use the Format utility instead. This format is useful for floptical drive users because the software cannot sense when a low density disk is in the drive. MSDOS 1.44M.Format This is the standard format for an MS-DOS 3 1/2" high density disk. If you are using the standard Amiga high density drive don't use this icon but rather use the Format utility instead. If you do not have an Amiga high density drive, forcing this format will fail. This format is useful for floptical drive users because the software cannot sense when a high density disk is in the drive. Floptical 20M.Format This is the format for a MS-DOS 20 Meg floptical disk. This format is not a hard drive format but a compatible floppy format. Do not use this format if your floptical device is configured as a hard disk. If you do not have a floptical drive, forcing this format will probably fail. This format is useful for floptical drive users because the software cannot sense when a disk the size of a floptical is in the drive. ATARI 720K.Format This is the standard format for an Atari ST 3 1/2" low density disk. Use this if you must but most Atari-STs can read the standard MS-DOS 720K format. MSDOS 360K.Format This is the standard format for an MS-DOS 5 1/4" low density disk. If you are using the standard Amiga drive don't use this icon but rather use the Format utility instead. Notes for Floptical Users Formatting with the floptical drive may require forcing a disk format. This is because your SCSI host controller cannot properly sense the size of the unformatted disk in the drive. There are two ways to format using the floptical drive. One: Insert a preformatted MS-DOS disk in the drive with the same formatted size as you want to format. If you want to format a 1.44M disk, for example, insert a preformatted MS-DOS 1.44M disk in the drive first. Then, execute the Format program. Proceed with the program until you come the requester that says "Ok to format volume ... " then insert the actual disk to be formatted and proceed. Two: Double-click on the format project icon in the system/Alt Formats drawer that corresponds to the desired format. For example, double-click on the MSDOS 720K.Format icon to 'force' the format of the disk to 720K. Proceed through the format. Choose the method that makes you comfortable. Experimentation is your best teacher. NOTE: At this time, GVP controllers will not permit a format of a blank floppy using the Format program. In order to low-level format a blank floppy you need to use their FAAASTPREP program, select "Manual Installation" then select "Low Level Format". When completed, exit FAAASTPREP and perform a Format with the "Quick Format" option.