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1988-05-11
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FORMATQM - QUICK MULTIPLE FORMAT/VERIFY FOR DISKETTES
Copyright 1987, Chuck Guzis and Sydex
All Rights Reserved
Version 1.1 December, 1987
Sydex
153 North Murphy Ave.
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
(408) 739-4866
THIS IS NOT FREE SOFTWARE and may not be sold without
the author's express written permission. If you have
paid a "public domain" vendor for this program, rest as-
sured that not one bit of what you paid ever gets back
to the author. If you use this program, YOU MUST
REGISTER. Neither SYDEX nor Mr. Guzis will answer tech-
nical support inquiries from unregistered users.
To register, send $15.00 with your name, company name
(if any) and address to -
SYDEX
153 North Murphy Ave.
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
Upon receipt of your registration fee, you will be sent
the most current version of FORMATQM and its accompany-
ing documentation.
FORMATQM and this document are protected by copyright.
The receipt or possession of this document does not con-
vey any rights beyond those enumerated herein to repro-
duce or distribute its contents. If FORMATQM or this
document are copied, a fee may be charged for the serv-
ice of copying only, and not for FORMATQM itself. If
such a charge is made, it must be clearly identified by
the vendor as a service charge only.
WHAT IS FORMATQM?
FORMATQM is a utility written to allow you to format a large num-
ber of diskettes in a single session with no keyboard interac-
tion. FORMATQM will make use of more than one disk drive and
produces formatted and verified diskettes in any of the standard
DOS formats.
FORMATQM will work with any PC-compatible and can produce the
following formats, given the corresponding media and drive:
1. 160K single-sided, 8 sector, 40 track, 5.25". This for-
mat was produced by Version 1 of DOS and is not in
general use now.
2. 180K single-sided, 9 sector, 40 track, 5.25". This is
the standard single-sided DOS diskette.
3. 320K double-sided, 8 sector, 40 track, 5.25". This for-
mat was produced by Version 1 of DOS and is not in
general use now.
4. 360K double-sided, 9 sector, 40 track, 5.25". This is
the standard double-sided DOS diskette.
5. 1,200K double-sided, 15 sector, 80 track, 5.25". This
is the high-density PC-AT format.
6. 720K double-sided, 9 sector, 80 track, 3.5". This is
used by the PS/2 machines as the standard interchange
format. PC-AT or -XT compatibles with 3.5" drives can
also use this format.
7. 1,440K double-sided, 18 sector, 80 track, 3.5". This is
used by the PS/2 Model 50 and 80 as high-density media.
The PC-AT with the proper BIOS and 3.5" drive can also
use this format.
The diskettes produced are non-system diskettes. That is, they do
not contain a copy of DOS as part of the format data. If a dis-
kette is "booted", a message will be displayed requesting a sys-
tem diskette and the boot process will be repeated, just as with
a standard non-system diskette.
A diskette produced by FORMATQM has had each track written and
verified, with any flawed tracks recorded in the diskette's File
Allocation Table (FAT). Entire tracks, rather than sectors are
marked as flawed for maximum reliability.
Page 1
HOW TO USE FORMATQM
FORMATQM is invoked at the DOS prompt by a command of the follow-
ing form:
FORMATQM drive:[drive:...] format
The brackets ([]) denote optional parameters. "drive:" specifies
the diskette drive to be used; at least one is required. If more
than one drive is specified, FORMATQM will "rotate" or "ping-
pong" drives with each copy. Usually, "drive:" is either A: or
B:; on four drive computers, C: and D: may also be used.
If you have added an external drive to your machine and access it
by means of a device driver called out in the CONFIG.SYS file,
you should use the physical unit number of the drive, rather than
the drive letter. For example, suppose that you had a 720K 3.5"
drive attached to your PC-XT clone and you declared it with the
following line in your CONFIG.SYS file:
DEVICE = DRIVER.SYS /D:1
Although this drive would be referred to as drive D:, you would
use a specifier of 1: for FORMATQM.
Note that PC-AT-type computers are limited to a maximum of two
diskette drives by BIOS convention.
"Format" refers to the type of diskette format desired, and may
be one of the following:
160K 180K 320K 360K 720K 1200K 1440K
Of course, the correct drive and media must be present for a for-
mat to be performed. On PC-AT type machines, FORMATQM will check
for compatibility between the specified format and the drive type
declared in your configuration SETUP procedure. No checking is
done for drives declared with unit numbers rather than drive let-
ters.
The following are examples of FORMATQM command lines:
FORMATQM B: 160K Drive is B:, DOS 1.X 160K format
FORMATQM A:B: 360K Use drives A: and B:, 360K format
FORMATQM 1: 720K Format 720K on drive unit 1.
During the operation of FORMATQM, you will be directed to insert
blank diskettes in the specified drives. When you have formatted
as many diskettes as you require, simply press the ESCape key.
You may press ESCape at any time to cause FORMATQM to terminate
execution.
Page 2
FORMATQM works by periodically examining the specified drives; it
attempts to determine when a diskette has been inserted or
removed. Normally, you should not need to touch the keyboard ex-
cept to terminate FORMATQM; just insert and remove diskettes as
required.
If a diskette contains flaws (unwritable areas), FORMATQM will
issue an error message showing the number of bad tracks. These
bad tracks are processed exactly the same as they would be by DOS
FORMAT; that is, they are marked as flawed in the File Allocation
Table (FAT) contained on that diskette.
How much storage a bad track represents varies according to the
type of formatting being performed:
On 160K and 320K diskettes, each track is 4,096 bytes.
On 180K, 360K and 720K diskettes, each track is 4,608 bytes.
On a 1.2M diskette, each track is 7,680 bytes.
On a 1.44M diskette, each track is 9,216 bytes.
FORMATQM is sensitive to changes in diskette drive status. When
you start a FORMATQM session, you'll need to insert your first
blank diskette in the indicated drive, even though you may have
already placed a blank in that drive before you entered the FOR-
MATQM command. Simply "popping" the diskette out and then in
again will do.
If you use 720K formatted diskettes, you should know that he 720K
format used by FORMATQM is the same as that supported by IBM PC-
DOS 3.2 and later. This 720K format is characterized by a 224
entry root directory and allocation block size of one sector per
cluster. However, several other vendors introduced 720K formats
in their own adaptations of MS-DOS. Most common was that for the
Data General DG/One computer with its 112 entry directory and al-
location size of two sectors per cluster. FORMATQM supports the
IBM implementation only.
24K of memory should be sufficient for execution of FORMATQM.
THE WISH LIST
FORMATQM represents what we consider to be a complete solution
for mass formatting of diskettes. If you have any ideas or sug-
gestion for improving FORMATQM, let us know!
Page 3
OTHER PRODUCTS FROM SYDEX
SHAREWARE PRODUCTS
ANADISK - The compleat diskette utility. Nothing like it
anywhere else; scan, edit, repair and copy just about any
kind of diskette. $15.00 Shareware registration fee.
TELEDISK - Turn any diskette into a compressed data file and
vice-versa. Allows you to send and receive entire diskettes
via modem. Great for those bootable game diskettes and for
diskettes with subdirectories. Works with many "copy-
protected" diskettes. $25.00 Shareware registration fee.
22NICE - Z80/8080/CP/M 2.2 emulation package for your PC.
Includes utilities for reading, writing, and formatting
"alien" CP/M diskettes for Osborne, Morrow, and Actrix. Will
make use of NEC V20/V30 chip if possible. $30.00 Shareware
registration fee.
COPYQM - Copy a single master diskette to multiple blank
diskettes with FORMATQM-type interaction. The ideal low-cost
diskette duplicator. $15.00 Shareware registration fee.
RETAIL PRODUCTS
SIMCGA 4.2 - Color Graphics Adapter simulation on monochrome
(Hercules-compatible) graphics-equipped machines. Available
from better software retailers and distributed by ABCO and
American Software Distributors.
---------------------------------------------------------------
It is impossible to write about personal computing nowadays
without mentioning someone's proprietary trademark. Some of the
names used in this document are trademarks of the following
firms:
International Business Machines, Microsoft, Intel Corpora-
tion, Data General
Page 4