🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <410DE2B9.A0DC3BAC@concentric.net>, John Turco <jtur@concentric.net> wrote:
>Phred wrote:
>> In article <OYsOc.2404$aS.251@charlie.risq.qc.ca>, leguerri@canr.hydro.qc.ca wrote:
>> >In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc Brian <bclark@es.co.nz> wrote:
>> >> "Pen" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote:
>> >>>The simple way is to just substitute your 5.25
>> >>>for the 3.5 temporarily. Just let it hang out
>> >>>the side of the computer. Then change the BIOS
>> >>>settings for the floppy. Most modern machines
>> >>>only allow one floppy at a time.
>> 
>> Many (all?) older machines were happy to regard a single physical
>> drive as both A: and B:, so you could do various copying things from
>> A: to B: without problems.  You were simply prompted to "insert disk
>> for drive d:" as appropriate.  Don't modern machines allow this?
><edited, for brevity>

>My first computer was a Pionex 486DX2/66, purchased in 1995, since
>"retired." It came with both 5.25" and 3.5" high density floppies (A: &
>B:, respectively), installed; using the XCOPY command, in DOS, I could
>copy from one drive to the other.

Yeah, I've known several such machines as it was my standard config 
since my 386SX-16 of some years ago (1*1.2MB and 1*1.44MB).  But more 
recent machines have tended to be just 1*1.44MB plus 1*CD-R/CD-RW; and 
the very latest I've met (Dell 4600) has dropped the FDD as standard, 
though still available as an option.

My original comment related to the ability of an early PC to see a 
single physical FDD as logically *both* A: and B: drives.

Hmm... now you've got me intrigued!  Hang on...  Waddayano!
Just tried DISKCOPY A: B: on this machine (Dell 4100, WinME, single 
1.44MB FDD) and it did the job okay BUT when it came to inserting the 
target disk it said to insert it in A:, which was a bit confusing.

So then tried XCOPY A:\filename B: and got "Invalid file 
specification".  So tried plain old DOS COPY and things then went a 
bit pear shaped:
1. COPY picked up the file okay from A: and asked for a disk in B:
2. Put disk in "B:" and got screen flash as DOS went to full screen!
3. It then asked for disk in A: and checked it out.
4. After a bit more of this A:/B: stuff at full screen it actually 
made the copy okay, but the process was less than convincing!
I don't recommend this technique as it's a bit startling!  AFAICS 
it would be more convenient, and confidence building, to go A:/C:/A: 
if you really needed to do this sort of thing on a modern PC.

Cheers, Phred.

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