Documentation for ICOPY.EXE

			    ImageCopy 2.0

			      Copyright

			   Patrick M. Ragan
			   CIS 100065,1602




What does ImageCopy do?

I use ImageCopy mainly to store images of diskettes onto my hard disk in 
order to write them back onto the same kind of diskettes whenever I am 
able to. Currently only disk drives A: and B: are supported, I guess I 
could change that whenever the demand for any kind of disk drive arises. 
The following diskette formats are supported:

     3«" - 720 KB and 1.4 MB
     5¬" - 360 KB and 1.2 MB

I wrote ImageCopy in order to be able to copy diskettes 1:1 without the must 
of having the according amount of empty diskettes at hand, instead at least 
some kind of PC or notebook hard disk drive. The disk images can be copied 
back to diskettes whenever I please.

ImageCopy can be used either menu-driven or via command line, without 
any fancy stuff. After reading a diskette you have the possibility to 
compress the image, whereas the result of the compression depends on 
the amount of data stored on diskette. After compressing ImageCopy then 
decides to either keep the compressed version of the image or the 
original. It _can_ happen that compressed images become larger than 
originals, especially with very dense diskettes.

A small tip for compression: Diskettes that are not completely full 
allow better compression ratios when they are first formatted before 
written to. Erasing full diskettes with "DEL *.*" doesn't do the trick 
since DOS only marks the files as deleted inside the FAT, whereas the 
data still resides on the diskette.

ImageCopy "remembers" the diskette size of the original, so that it will ask 
for the according diskette type when writing the image back to diskette at 
a later time. Images are first decompressed in case of image compression. You 
can have ImageCopy format a diskette for you first before writing the image 
back.



What does ImageCopy not do?

ImageCopy _cannot_ copy diskettes with sector oriented copy protection 
mechanisms. It is also not possible to copy images to diskettes that do not 
match the size or capacity of the original, e.g. you can't copy the image 
made of a 5¬" 1.2 MB diskette on to a 3«" 1.4 MB diskette (otherwise it 
would not be an image anymore).



ImageCopy is free to use, I ask not to sell it. I regard it as FreeWare until 
further notice. Should any problems or erros arise, or should anyone just 
want to give his piece or make suggestions, feel free to contact me via 
CompuServe. My CIS ID is 100065,1602 .




* Version revision *

Version 2.1

- Bug-Fix, compressed Images of images created before ICOPY 2.0 
  could not be decompressed with 2.0.


Version 2.0

- Joined the Englisch and German version into one package by checking 
  the system country code
- Changed switch "-V" to "V"
- Possibility to activate ImageCopy via command line options
- Bug-fix, "Abort/Retry" now accepts non-capitol entries during 
  formatting errors
- Copy, formatting and compression status is displayed as a bar inside 
  the menu
- Diskette drives inside the menu are no longer restricted to Drive A: 
  or B:


Version 1.3

- Bug fix, aborting compression after full hard disk
- Compression status shown in percent instead of bytes
- Diskette drive entry not required for PCs with only one diskette drive


Version 1.2

- Bug fix, diskette Read Errors abort copy process correctly


Version 1.1

- A comment of 20 character length may be entered for an image file.
- When writing to diskette, the current directory can be searched for image 
  files, presuming there are image files inside the current directory. In 
  addition diskette size and comment are also displayed.
- A switch "-V" was introduced in order to display image comments when 
  calling ImageCopy.
- ICCONV.EXE should be used to convert images created with version 1.0.