🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov8.180850.6211@news2.cis.umn.edu> walt@molbio.cbs.umn.edu (Walter Sauerbier) writes:
>3) 'Successfully' formatting MS-DOS diskettes, and writing files to them 
>  often yields diskettes that appear EMPTY to MS-DOS machines.  I am writing
>  filenames in the proper MS-DOS format (xxxxxxxx.xxx).  


	I found formatting a DOS floppy (BuildDOS) on the mono 16meg
	slabs at school to be both very slow and very unreliable.  
	1.44 meg _true_ disks also have this problem, but I have found
	that "punched" disks (which work fine on my PC, and on the
	PS/2s at school w/o error) are _completely_ unreliable if you
	use them with the NeXT system.
	
	For empty files, most of the time a simple chkdsk /f a: run from
	a true-blue PC will fix the problem. 
	(i.e. the lost files are what you're looking for, but the 
	names, at least, go the way of the dodo)..

	My solution to this problem is to log into a PC on the net
	and FTP the files local from my account... :-(



>Is this a hardware or a software problem?  
>Is there an upgrate/utility that can consistently deal with MS-DOS floppies?  
>Are there utilities that can read/write Macintosh or Amiga diskettes?
					^^^^          ^^^^

	I thought NS3.0 was supposed to add Mac disk compatibility?
	As for Amiga, if anyone is interested, the 880k format is
	really rather simple.  Unless the controller is crippled 
	(a la IBM PC) it should be fairly easy to do.  The various
	other formats (i.e. the various High density standards) on 
	the other hand, are probably next to impossible.  (FFS 
	LD floppies shouldn't be any more difficult than OFS LD 
	floppies...)..


	I have also noticed that about 2/3rds of the machines in our
	labs cannot take floppies--that is, their floppy slot is there,
	but there is a piece of black plastic (a dust door??) that
	stands in the way and will not budge.


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