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Article #7039Reading disks without the BIOS
From: andrew
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1991 06:52
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1991 06:52
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1314 bytes
This is probably one of those 100 times plus questions but... How do I find out what format the disk in the floppy drive is if all I know is that the disk is 5.25" and readable by the PC disk interface? Or, in other words... I have a disk that may be 320K, 360K, or 1.2Meg, although I don't know which. The disk will read on a PC although the disk in NOT in MS-DOS! This means I cant read the BPB from the first sector on the disk (because its not there) and I can't read the FAT-ID (its not there either). I want to be able to sense what format the disk is in so I can write a program that will read the disks without relying on the BIOS. I also want to be able to read disks formated with 400KFORMAT, a neat Publuc Domain program that is available from some of the buliten boards around here... this means I need to be able to work out what tracking and sectoring the disk uses! Andrew.
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arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!sdd.hp.com!mips!pacbell.com!decwrl!waikato.ac.nz!canterbury!otago.ac.nz!andrewShow Full Headers
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!sdd.hp.com!mips!pacbell.com!decwrl!waikato.ac.nz!canterbury!otago.ac.nz!andrew From: andrew@otago.ac.nz Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer Subject: Reading disks without the BIOS Message-ID: <1991Jun11.181239.513@otago.ac.nz> Date: 11 Jun 91 06:52:00 GMT Organization: University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand Lines: 17