Backups of Distibution Floppies

[Doug Ingraham]

In article <241 at vector.Dallas.TX.US>, chip at vector.Dallas.TX.US (Chip Rosenthal) writes:
> 
> If you've got a utility which just copies the raw data on the disk, then
> it matters not what the logical format is, just that the physical format
> be understood.  Under DOS you've got DISKCOPY.  Under unix, there's dd.
> 
Older versions of DOS will allow you to copy non-DOS diskettes, but not DOS
3.30.  It gives the unfortunate message Non DOS Diskette.  Its this kind of
stupidity that makes UN*X and variants attractive to me.  Under UN*X data is
data.  I don't know exactly when Microsoft (or IBM) broke this valuable
feature.  Or did they consider it a bug?

I copy diskettes using dd with a command like (for 1.2 meg):

Insert source diskette in drive.

dd if=/dev/rfd0 of=disk1 bs=30k

Put preformatted destination diskette in drive.

dd if=disk1 of=/dev/rfd0 bs=30k

remove destination diskette.

If you want to verify the diskette read it back in under a different name.
then use cmp to compare the files.

I link /dev/rfd0 to the appropriate real device.

This is not as fast as it would be under DOS because the UN*X vendors
don't seem to care how fast the floppy driver operates.

> -- 
> Chip Rosenthal / chip at vector.Dallas.TX.US / Dallas Semiconductor / 214-450-5337

--
Doug Ingraham
dpi at loft386.UUCP
bigtex!loft386!dpi