[Coco] Looking for utilities for the following chores....

[Aaron Wolfe]

On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 7:18 AM, Robert Gault <robert.gault at att.net> wrote:
> K. Pruitt wrote:
>>
>> Some of the things I would like to do is:
>>
>> 1. Create blank virtual disks for use with Drivewire 4 (currently I am
>> using
>> pre-existing blank virtual disks)
>
>
> You don't need any utilities for this purpose as DW4 will do the job.
> From the DW4 interface, right click on a drive number and select "Create new
> disk for drive #".
> A new window will open where you can enter the name of an existing file in
> the blank. If you want a name that does not yet exist (as a zero byte file),
> click on the [...] and select the directory you want and enter a new file
> name.
> This will 'create' a disk but it can't yet be used. You must format the disk
> either with the Disk Basic DSKI or the OS-9 Format commands. These commands
> are issued from your Coco.
>
>
>> 2. Copy files from my PC (let's say text files from the My Documents
>> directory)
>> to those virtual disks which I could then access via my Coco.
>
>
> If you use a current OS that does not have DOS, you need either the Toolshed
> package (a Sourceforge project), imgtool/wimgtool (from MESS), or some of
> the tools mentioned on this list.
>

Only one thing to add.. the ability to format DECB disk images and add
files to them is also built into DW4 (admittedly not well documented
though!)

The DECB image manipulation commands all start with 'dw disk dos'
(which can be abbreviated 'dw d d')

dw disk dos add # path   -  adds the file at any URI or local path to
DECB disk in drive #
dw disk dos dir # - show directory of DECB disk in drive #
dw disk dos format # - format image in drive # for DECB
dw disk dos list # filename - list contents of filename from DECB disk
image in drive #

the list command useful for quickly transferring a file from DECB disk
to OS9, i.e:

dw d d l 0 MYBASIC.BAS > /dd/stuff/mybasic.bas

The dw commands may be entered in the command box of the graphical UI,
at the OS9 command prompt, or from CoCoboot with the 'dw' word loaded.
(Someday we really need to add the 'dw' abilities to the DECB prompt too).

So, technically you could do the op's entire process with DW4 alone.
Toolshed is still a very good thing to have around for anything more
complicated though.
DW can only append files to disks, no delete or anything like that.

>
>> 3. Copy real RSDOS disks from my Coco to virtual disks via Drivewire. When
>> I try
>> this it appears to be successful but the virtual disks always revert to
>> their
>> blank state.
>>
>
> You don't need any utilities for this purpose as DW4 will do the job.
> On the DW4 menubar, select Tools/HDBDOS translation. You should then see a
> message Item 'HDBDOSMode' set to 'true'. Select it again and you should see
> Item 'HDBDOSMode' set to 'false'. You want this mode turned on or TRUE.
>
> Now mount a blank or scrap disk in the DW4 server drive0. Mount on your Coco
> the disk to transfer in drive1. Enter the HDBDOS command DRIVEOFF0. This
> will make drive0 a real Coco drive and drive1 a DW4 drive. Use BACKUP0TO1 or
> the COPY command.
>
> You can also transfer files from DW4 to you Coco.
>
>
>> Are there utilities (or even just instructions) out there that do these
>> tasks
>> successfully?
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>
> If 1. or 3. above don't work, you either have Write Protect turned on in DW4
> or have used a Read Only directory on your PC.
>
>
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