SLO BYTES PC USER'S GROUP NEWSLETTER JULY, 1988 FORMATTING WITH THE WD CONTROLLER By Clay W. Ellis microCHIP Reprinted from GS-BUG Newsletter, October 1987 There seem to be recurring requests as to how to format a hard disk with the Western Digital Controller card. The following is taken from the WD1002S-WX2 manual. 1. Load DEBUG (Type "debug" followed by a CR (carriage return) (don't type the quotes) 2. At the DEBUG prompt type "RAX" 3. After DEBUG returns "AX 0000," type "ddii" where dd=relative drive number and ii=interleave factor. Follow with a . Example: 0103 is a Drive D with an interleave of 3. 4. Type "G=C800:0" 5. Type "Y" to begin formatting. 6. Run DOS FDISK and FORMAT Note that the above does a "low level format" of the hard disk. Watch the interleave factor: too low a number will degrade performance as well as too high a number. =============================================================================== THE HOWS AND WHYS OF HEXADECIMAL By David Zechiel, ?SYNTAX, Texas Reprinted from Ctrl-Alt-Del, The Journal of the UCLA PCUG, May, 1988 If you have owned your computer for very long, then you have probably noticed that occasionally a document you read or a conversation you hear makes reference to strange numbers that not only contain the digits 0 to 9, but also have some letters mixed in too. When you inquire about the nature of such a number you will be told that the number is given in "hexadecimal." People around the world use base ten (almost certainly because of the number of fingers we have). We call it base ten because there are ten different symbols we use to create numbers: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9. If we want to make larger numbers, then we have to combine the ten numbers we have. So if you have fifteen things, you write the number "15" meaning 'one ten and five units.' If you have two hundred and eighty seven things, you write the number "287" meaning 'two hundreds (which is ten times ten), eight tens and seven units.' All numbering systems work in this way, but some have fewer than ten numbers (for instance binary, or base two, which only has the digits 0 and 1) and some have more than ten digits, such as hexadecimal, which has sixteen. Now, hexadecimal (or as I will refer to it, hex) uses the first 10 digits from base ten (0-9) and borrows the first 6 letters from the alphabet to still represent values larger than 10 with one digit. Thus: 0 = zero 8= eight 1 = one 9 = nine 2 = two A = ten 3 = three B = eleven 4 = four C = twelve 5 = five D = thirteen 6 = six E = fourteen 7 = seven F = fifteen In most literature, hex numbers are prefaced with a currency sign ($) to indicate the number is in hex, rather than base ten. So the number $4 is four (just like base 10) and number $E is fourteen (quite unlike base ten). We can combine these digits to make larger numbers than fifteen, such as $41. This is four sixteens and one unit (or in base ten, 65). $A9 is ten sixteens and nine units (or 169 in base ten). Still larger numbers, like $202 represent two two- hundred-fifty-sixes (which is sixteen times sixteen), zero sixteens and two units, or 514 in base 10. You are probably still wondering, "Why use this overly complicated system?" It turns out that in working with computers the hexadecimal numbering system actually simplifies things! =============================================================================== DOS UTILITY TIPS By Major David Boyd Command and Control Microcomputer User's Group Reprinted from Bits & Bytes, March, 1988 Some DOS commands can get you into deep trouble if you try to use them without an intimate understanding of what they do. RECOVER Several files on a hard disk were recently damaged, probably by a telephone placed too close to the machine. (The bell ringer in a telephone is electromagnetically driven, so it produces a fairly powerful magnetic field when it rings. This magnetic field can damage floppies, hard drives, and - in extreme cases - can even cause problems with RAM). In an effort to recover the damaged files, the operator used the DOS RECOVER command. Unfortunately, that produced a far more serious problem. If RECOVER is executed against an entire file structure, rather than against a single file, it will identify every referenced sector linkage as a file and rename it FILE0001.REC (then FILE0002.REC for the next one, and so on). When it does that, it can effectively destroy the integrity of every file on the hard drive, including the copy protection markings of copy protected software, because it overwrites unmarked files with recovered files. In other words, it will destroy your installed copies of Lotus 1-2-3 and dBase III as effectively as if you had reformatted the hard disk. You cannot do an uninstall, normally, after you have run recover. You are wise to consider RECOVER a taboo DOS command! There are, however, things you can do to reduce the likelihood of losing all your files. First, back up the hard disk regularly (at least once a week). That which you do not back up you will surly lose, and the likelihood of damage to a file is directly proportional to the amount of work you have invested in it. CHKDSK Periodically run CHKDSK against your hard disk to detect problems before they start. If you get back a message saying you have "F PARAMETER ERRORS," then run CHKDSK again, but do it by entering: CHKDSK/F A minor bug in CHKDSK causes it, when it finds errors, to ask if you want the lost clusters and chains converted into files. Even if you answer yes, it won't make the conversion unless you have given the command with the /F option. Once you've done this, you will wind up with files named FILE0000.CHK, FILE0001.CHK, etc., with one file for every chain. Before you delete these files, look at each one by entering this command: TYPE FILE0000.CHK Examine each of the files. If you find one that is obviously something you want to keep (which is not very likely, because they are almost always remnants of files you have already erased), then rename it by entering REN FILE0000.CHK FILE0000.KP Substitute the proper filenames as required. Then, once you have checked them all, delete the garbage by entering : DEL *.CHK This command will delete every file with the extension .CHK. If you ever find "F PARAMETER ERRORS" (and you frequently will after intensively editing files), you must run CHKDSK/F. These errors will grow if not treated. BACKUP A good safety measure, this command should be used a least once a week. It is important that you remember, however, that files transferred this way cannot be used by PC DOS or any of your application programs until they have been placed back on the hard drive with the RESTORE command. =============================================================================== Bits N' Bytes We would like more input as to the type of programs you would like to see at the meetings. This includes the new user's SIG. You might direct your statements to Gus Thomasson as he is our new program chairman. The visitors parking lot next to the administration building fills up quickly at the meetings. We suggest you park in the H-4 parking lot next to the fire station. This will be a must when we switch to Sundays as the visitor lot is filled with student cars during the weekends. At the last meeting someone wanted to purchase our two remaining narrow carriage printer ribbons. Please contact me again before the next meeting and I will make sure they are available for you. For those of you new to modems and using a floppy drive system, we suggest you use Qmodem 2.0 found in the small disk box at the library in Fisher Hall 292. This version is much smaller and is easier to use with limited disk space. Our many thanks to George Campbell for the MANY hours he has spent developing our bulletin board. We have over 400 files on our BBS! Avoid the lines for copying at the meetings. Download your disks from the BBS. New library disks are added to the BBS approximately 1 week before the meeting. If you find a particular file with the locator disk but it is not on the board, leave George a note (selection "C" from the main menu) and will be put on the board for you within 24 hours. New features on the BBS include "live programs". You can now use the file locator disk while on the BBS or pick your 6/49 lottery numbers. One caution, DO NOT turn your modem off while in the middle of a live program. It "crashes" the bulletin board.... Not a nice thing to do to our hard working SYSOP! For downloading files, I suggest using Y-Modem protocol. It's faster than X-Modem. =============================================================================== SLO BYTES LIBRARY AVAILABLE 6 DAYS A WEEK Many of you have expressed a desire to have our public domain library available for copying at times other than during the club meetings. Fisbosa Computers will endeavor to make this a reality, starting August 1st, by having the complete library available Tuesday through Friday during their normal working hours. Hours are Tuesday - Friday 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. They will have a computer with two 360K 5.25" floppy drives for copying club disks. Please observe the following rules: You must call in advance and set up an appointment for copying - Call 549-9027. Present your club card upon arrival. Know in advance which disks you want to copy. The File Locator disk will not be available for your use. Bring only blank disks to the store or buy them there. Copy entire disks only. Type SLOBYTES for the menu to be used for copying. The owners of Fisbosa will not be available to answer your questions. You are expected to know the fundamentals of copying a disk. The computer is to be used only for copying disks. Do not use their computer to run the programs. We will set up a menuing system and have a help sheet next to the computer explaining how to copy disks if you need such information. There will be a nominal charge of 50 cents for each club disk requested and copied. The small charge is to compensate the store for the use of their equipment. Have any other questions? Contact Bob Ward or the SYSOP (George Campbell) through our bulletin board at 528-3753. =============================================================================== Calendar August 4th PC-TOOLS by French Morgan September 1st RememDIR, a commercial memory resident directory expansion utility will be demonstrated by its author, Bill Roch October 2nd XTREE PRO will be demonstrated by Executive Systems. Their headquarters is now in San Luis Obispo! Remember our meeting for the months of August and September is Fisher Hall 286. (We hope this will be our permanent meeting place). The library will remain in Fisher 292. Check the bill-board in the patio for directions. Effective October 2nd, our meetings will be held on the first Sunday of each month. New user's SIG will start at 1:30pm with the general meeting starting at 2:30pm. The library will be available for copying at approximately 12:30. We're sorry for the inconvenience this may cause some of our members, but due to difficulties in scheduling a room on the Cal Poly Campus during weekdays, we have little choice. =============================================================================== MEMBERSHIP LOG A big welcome to our new members for the month of July, 1988: Ben Brown 239-2527 Paul Cranny 772-1759 Marcy Greenblatt 927-8501 Lyle Hansen 489-4834 Lloyd Mathews 543-1688 William Roch 528-7624 Judy Springer 543-1020 Jackie Stenzel 541-2020 For those of you who registered for membership by mail, be sure to pick up a new users manual at the next meeting. Your membership card will be sent to you by mail. The following individuals will be dropped from membership if renewal is not received by August 1st, 1988: Leigh Elfrink John Gallo Jim Lidberg Sandy Sidah =============================================================================== NEWS FROM OUR LIBRARY The following disks have been added to our library for the month of July, 1988: #255 WINE.ARC - Catalog your wine cellar with this database. (Added to existing files) #271 PROFESSIONAL MASTER KEY - A good Norton Utility look-a-like. #272 DISK COMMANDO - Similar to XTREE. 121 - ONE to ONE is a small communications package used between 2 computers. Transfer files in the background while typing messages back and forth. #273 SLIC WORKS - This is an integrated package. Contains a spreadsheet, letter writer, communications package and information filer. UPDATES #230 OOP.ARC added to joke disk #235 MealMeister updated and moved to disk #275 #237 MAPMEM.ARC updated #255 LQALL.ARC updated and moved to disk #274 Disk numbers 255 and 271-273 will be available at the meeting for 90 cents each or you may copy them from our library. =============================================================================== Whats Happening. With his usual wit and humor, Gus Thomasson gave us another demonstration of one of his favorite software packages, Dollars and $ense. We received a brief course on economics including the fine balancing act between assets, liabilities, expenses and income. From this point he launched headlong into the main program showing us how easy it is to get our total financial picture under control with Dollars and $ense. With this financial program you can budget income, create "what if" scenarios, and maintain several checkbooks simultaneously. At the end of the year taxes become a breeze with the detailed report formats available in Dollars and $ense. Your total budget can be graphically represented comparing budgeted expenses against real expenses. Hopefully the bar graph lines will be the same height or at least the real expenses will be less than the budgeted expenses (fat chance with my pay check!). Dollars and $ense can be integrated with electronic banking. Gus pays all his bills electronically, except for his cable TV which was another story, while hooked up directly to Bank of America's database. Checks which have cleared the bank are reconciled with all entries made into Dollars and $ense. Another option lets the bank post entries into your Dollars and $ense checking account while on line. Dollars and $ense has a very fast learning curve compared to Managing Your Money and other personal financial packages. In most cases it is as powerful as other, more expensive, programs. One short-fall of Dollars and $ense is the lack of an amortization schedule for certain debts. But if this is something you don't need, then Dollars and $ense will probably meet your needs. Our thanks to Gus Thomasson for a very informative and entertaining evening! Next month French Morgan will demonstrate PC-TOOLS by Central Point Software. This is an easy to use program similar to Norton Utilities. PC-TOOLS will peer into your hard disk structure, copy files across subdirectories, search a file for text, map your hard disk, and compare two files. This is about half of its features. Most of PC-TOOLS utilities are best used on a hard disk although many may also be used to control files on a floppy disk. Our new users meeting will be conducted by George Campbell. Many members have asked for a demonstration of PKXARC and PKARC, a indispensable shareware utility by PKWARE. PKARC is a utility that compresses several files under one filename. The filesize of the resultant "squeezed" file is also smaller than the sum of its counterparts. This is a great program for electronic transfer of files. Time is money when sending files over a long distance phone line. The companion program, PKXARC, unsqueezes the files compressed by PKARC, restoring them to their original size and useability. Of course we will have time to answer all your personal computer questions. Hope to see you there. Note: At the last new user's meeting a member asked why, when using CHKDSK on a newly formatted disk, the message "0 Bytes in 1 hidden files" appears. I tried duplicating this statement and found it only appeared when the newly formatted disk had a volume label either created with FORMAT/V or the LABEL command. If the label was removed from an empty disk, the message "0 Bytes in 1 hidden files" also disappeared. I'm not sure the statement has any meaning on an empty disk but does appear if the disk is labeled. =============================================================================== ARE YOU SURE (Y/N)? By Martin Shulman Birmingham PCUG Once upon a time a guy was going to delete a file from his hard disk that he no longer wanted. The file (we'll call it "FRANCIS.DOC" to protect the innocent) was in a subdirectory with his wordprocessor. So the full pathname of the file was C:\WP\FRANCIS.DOC. Accordingly, he entered: DEL C:\WP\ FRANCIS.DOC He did not realize that he had a fatal space in the command. Nor did he know what I'm about to tell you, that when DOS asks "are you sure (Y/N?", DOS is really telling you that you are about to do a GLOBAL DELETION. Since he really was sure he wanted to delete FRANCIS.DOC, he answered Y and pressed the carriage return. DOS read the command up to the space and obligingly wiped out all the files in his \WP directory. You may think that was pretty dirty of DOS. Really, this is a two-edged sword. Three are times when it's very convenient to use this uh, feature. Instead of entering CD\TEMP then DEL *.* then CD\ then RD\TEMP, you can enter DEL TEMP then RD\TEMP. Remmeber that DOS is asking you to confirm that you want to perform a mass deletion when you see ARE YOU SURE. =============================================================================== PC Tools, A Utility for All Reasons The past few years there has been a minor explosion of utility software for use with interfacing DOS and the computer user (called SHELLS) and for managing the harddisk the volumes of data and programs residing on them. This month I'll review PCTOOLS from Central Point Software. Most computer users have settled on a favorite. If PCTOOLS is not one in your bag of utilities, you should reconsider. I've owned PCTOOLS from nearly the first day it was published. Crude at first, it has become an extremely powerful tool. The recent release of version 4.x has most if not all the utilities a computer user might ever need. But not satisfied with the product, and listening to what customers have asked for ... expect version 5 this September. Currently, PCTOOLS DELUXE (version 4.x) competes with 1 DIR PLUS, Q-DOS, NORTON COMMANDER, NORTONS UTILITIES, FASTBACK PLUS, TAKE TWO, XTREE, MACE UTILITIES, and a multitude of other utilities that are just as popular. Have you ever had a diskette (or harddisk for that matter) 'go bad' on you ... you had lots of data and/or programs that you couldn't consider redeveloping or finding ... IT WAS YOUR ONE AND ONLY COPY!!! Well, PCTOOLS DELUXE to the rescue. Use PCFORMAT and you'll be guided through the task of data recovery. Twice I've had the recent experience of finding a diskette with the message 'Abort, Retry, Ignore'. Both times I recovered the entire contents of the diskettes in a fraction of the time needed to rebuild the diskettes from scratch. But this is only 1 of dozens of features in PCTOOLS DELUXE. Central Point Software has included PCFORMAT which is a safe formatter. It allows you to format any standard media without fear of loosing the ability to recover valuable data. You accidently formatted you harddisk ... no problem! Also included are utilities for creating a mirror image of your harddisk for future recoveries; disk caching utility to speed up the access to your disks; a utility used to rebuild a reformatted disk or diskette; an unfragment utility that also optimizes, tests the quality of, tests the organization of, and allows you to 'zero' out empty sectors (so no one can see or recover what data you had) of disks or diskettes; backup and restore programs that compete with the best ... so good are they that you can automate the entire backup procedure so that you don't need to answer ANY questions ... and they are FAST (and so far, reliable). That's not alot, BUT we haven't even gotten to the best of PCTOOLS DELUXE. PCTOOLS itself approximates a DOS SHELL and a lot more. There are two main screens that you work from. One screen is FILE oriented, while the other screen is DISK oriented. You don't need to know how to copy from drive A: to drive B: ... PCTOOLS will give you simple questions to answer for copying as many or as few files to anywhere! Some of the features of the FILE oriented screen are Copying, Comparing, Renaming, Deleting, Verifying, Editing, Wordprocessing, Finding, Changing Attributes, Printing, Listing, and Sorting. The DISK oriented screen allows you to performs functions are follows: Copying, Comparing, Finding, Renaming, Verifying, Editing, Mapping, Locating, Formatting, Undeleting, System Information, Parking, Creating and Maintaining directories and subdirectories. Have you ever tried to diskcopy and you had 2 dissimilar drives ... drive A: is a 1.2 MB disk drive and drive B: is a 360 KB disk drive. PCTOOLS allows you to diskcopy between different drives. One of the best features is that PCTOOLS can be memory resident ... that is, just a keystroke away to assistance. Even better is the price (depending where you shop) ranging from $35 to $75. It's tough to visualize what all of these functions do and how simple they are to implement ... so we'll have a demo at the next meeting AND a raffle for a copy of PCTOOLS DELUXE, compliments of Central Point Software. ............. ===============================================================================