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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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In article <1992Nov8.180850.6211@news2.cis.umn.edu>  
walt@molbio.cbs.umn.edu (Walter Sauerbier) writes:
> Our new color NeXTstation ha great problems writing to MS-DOS formatted 
> floppies.  Even if this subject has been beaten to death already, it is
> a very current, very real unsolved problem for us.  
> 
> Problems:
> 1) You can't initialize an unformatted disk to MS-DOS format unless you
>   (deviously) first insert an MS-DOS disk, select it, then manually  
eject
>   that disk and supplant it with your unformatted one.  I am  
uncomfortable 
>   with this because it's like unmounting/mounting a filesystem without  
Mach's
>   knowledge.  Can this cause any harm?
> 2) 1.44MB MS-DOS floppie (formatted on an MS-DOS machine) are often un-
>   writeable.  When I try to copy to them, I get an "Invalid Argument"  
error
>   in the process inspector! The disk write-protect is not the problem;  
so
>   what the hell IS*?
> 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).  


1) Congratulations on finding a way to do this.  I couldn't.

2)  This is a "well-known" bug with 2.2, and only with 2.2.  2.1 and 3.0  
are both better.  Interestingly enough, you could copy long filenames to  
MS-DOS floppies with 2.1, and they would be case-converted and truncated  
to fit.  With 3.0, you must first rename your files to be lower case and  
fit within the DOS 8.3 limits.  If anyone knows how to beat this, I would  
be very grateful.

3) There were several similar problems with 2.1 and 2.2; all I can say  
about 3.0 is that they seem less frequent so far.

Paul
-- 
Paul Lynch
P & L Systems                   (NeXTmail) paul@seer.demon.co.uk
Tel: (0494)671501                      paull@cix.compulink.co.uk
Fax: (0494)680228                       76711.451@compuserve.com