Reading AmigaDOS-formatted disks ?

[Noster]

Hi

@Piru

> AFAIK CrossDOS requires Kickstart 2.0+...

No, I own a CrossDos version (CrossDos+ Version 5.0) that do work with Kickstart 1.3, I have used it often with my A1000 back that days -- the Amiga drive was able to read several MSDOS-disks that were too bad for the PC to be read :-)

@GreatLor

Do you own a modem and terminal software for the Amiga ? Any modem will do it even an old 2400 baud modem. In that case you may be able to get the required files via the phone-line.

Noster

[Noster]

Hi

> I REALY NEED to get the pc accepting 720k-formatted HD-disks

No way by software!

But it is very easy, have a look at a DD and a HD disk. You will see that the HD-disk has an additional hole at the opposite side than the read-write hole. Just use a small sticker and put it over the hole and the PC will think it is a DD disk.

Noster

[Noster]

Hi

> MS-DOS either says that "the disk is unusable, either the thing is defect or the track 0 is damaged"

I have bad experiences in formating HD disks as DD disks, the density of the read/write head seems to have problems with this, therefore it doesn't work with all HD disks (as one might expect if formating in a lower density). In fact I have major problems in formating any floppy-disk on any PC. I think the disks that are sold now are already very old, because noone uses them any more...

> or it starts "formatting" but it would take 20 minutes or so to format

The damn MS-D**F tries to save the contents of any disk that is formated to allow the "unformating" of a disk (see the dos command "Unformat"). If the disk hasn't been formated or has been previously formated in a different format (as in this case) the stupid OS needs very long to detect that there is nothing it could save for unformating :-(
You should call the format command with the following arguments to suppress this behaviour:

   Format A: /U

(the argument /F:720 should not be required if the HD-hole is covered by a sticker)

Noster

[Noster]

Hi

There is not a so large size-contrast, if you have a deeper look on the files:

Tequilla contains some stuff for the wind**f PC. The part that is for the Amiga is only 11KB (decompressed), so fi this part is packed using lha there is only a remaining size of 5 KB :-)
It's the software for the damn PC that is so large.

Noster