[Coco] Re: From virtual disk to real disk

[Roger Taylor]

At 08:39 AM 11/5/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>John E. Malmberg writes:
>>A test on Windows NT 4.0 revealed that from a non-privileged user account 
>>it could read COCO disks.  This should have the same protection as XP and 
>>2000.
>>What did not work was the MS-DOS file system calls.
>>So using the documented BIOS calls from the Microsoft C library should 
>>work to access a previously formatted COCO disk.
>
>I do not know about WinNT 4, but using the Windows APIs that MSDN 
>explicitly states are intended to support 5 1/4 drives simply fail on 
>Win2000.  The error code is not a permission error, just a simple 
>know-nothing failure.
>My bet is that this is a bug, plain and simple, and our friends in Redmond 
>are just not bothering to fix it because to be fair, 5 1/4 drives do not 
>matter in the grand scheme of things.

I want to lean towards Microsoft is trying to phase out older devices such 
as the 5.25 drives.  After all, it's almost impossible to run downtown and 
find those disks anymore.  Over here, I've got a huge stack of used disks 
that are in good condition, and I don't expect I'll need any more.

I've also cloned most of my 5.25"s onto 3.5's (wasting 3/4 of the disk, 
actually), for Disk BASIC games and quality programs, etc.  It might be 
worth it to add a 3.5 720k on your CoCo and hope that Windows 2000 or XP 
can make CoCo disks in it's 3.5 HD drive.