Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rochester!cornell!batcomputer!braner From: braner@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (braner) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: A challenge to you disk experts Message-ID: <1866@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> Date: Thu, 18-Dec-86 01:13:46 EST Article-I.D.: batcompu.1866 Posted: Thu Dec 18 01:13:46 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 18-Dec-86 22:37:43 EST Reply-To: braner@batcomputer.UUCP (braner) Organization: Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY Lines: 30 Summary: Utilize the back of disks formatted as SS [] The fastest way to copy a disk's data is to copy the whole disk (rather than file-by-file copy which is very slow). A consequence is that most disks I got with PD software, and all commercial disks, are single sided - and so are their back-ups! Since I have a double-sided drive, I resent wasting half of each of those disks. There are at least two possible solutions: (1) Devise a way to copy the complete contents of a SS disk onto a DS disk quickly, resulting in a half-full, fully functional DS disk (on which you can save a lot of other files). I guess this would be done by reading the whole disk into RAM, analyzing it, modifying the stuff in RAM a bit (FATs, etc), formatting the target (DS), and writing the data on it. (2) Achieve the same or a similar result, but by post-processing an existing SS disk (leaving the data in place, formatting the other side, and modifying the FATs, etc). If making it into a DS disk without moving the file data is impossible, perhaps it is possible to make it work like two separate single-sided disks. It might be necessary to run a little program to activate each side when it is wanted (by modifying the boot sector). Any disk experts up to the challenge? I would also appreciate any info explaining how to emulate the incredible disk-reading speed demonstrated by STCOPY 2.0. - Moshe Braner