Exact Disk Copy PC Floppy Utility, Disk repair, Disk format


This is very old and I had removed it; however, some people ask for it, so that I was ‘forced’ to post it again. It is called PC (Floppy) Utilities and it comes from the old DOS 2 times, in 286 processors! Here is the description:

The formatting utility is more efficient than the standard format program delivered with DOS or Windows. Floppies formatted with non-DOS systems, like Amiga or Macintosh are faster recognised and converted. HD or DD is auto detected and the layout for the tracks is displayed so you can see the bad sectors.

Exact diskcopy makes an exact copy of the floppy disk (if the format is supported, see below); it copies bad sectors and the two spare tracks. Formatting a sector with wrong parameters creates bad sectors; the sector will disappear and is reported as a bad sector by the BIOS. The sector can be recovered with the disk repair utility.

Disk repair can restore bad sectors by continuously rewriting them; this can restore up to 30% of the bad sectors. The utility attempts to repair the sector ten times, if it isn’t restored by then, the sector is marked bad. NOTE none of these utilities mark bad sectors; in the fat table you should run a surface test with SCANDISK if you chose to use the disk anyway. It is highly recommended that you don’t use diskettes with bad sectors, because bad sectors may expand to their neighbours.

If you want to change things on your floppies that normally do not have to be changed like editing the serial number or removing those annoying “.” and “..” directories from your disk, you can do that with your Low level disk editor. There are no restrictions but your knowledge in what you can do with this powerful tool.

If you’re a programmer and want to test interrupts, here is your tool: running and editing interrupt vectors; it has never been easier to test interrupts; in combination with the interrupt list this tool is absolutely necessary. Want to know what’s going on inside your computer? Try the low level memory editor; you can view and edit running programs everywhere in the conventional memory area; ideal for hacking dos-software.

Disk utilities:  Low level floppy formatting   – Exact diskcopy, including bad sectors and track 81 + 82   – Disk repair, remove bad sectors from your disks   – Low level disk viewing / editing, hexadecimal and text

Memory utilities:  – Manual editing of interrupt vectors   – Manual executing of interrupt vectors   – Low level memory viewing / editing, hexadecimal and text

System requirements:  The program has been tested on a 286 with 4 Megs of ram, but should work fine on a 286 with 1 Meg of ram.  – 286 Processor or higher.   – A VGA or 100% compatible display adapter.   – DOS 2 or higher