#1# EZ-DisKlone by EZX Publishing EZ-DisKlone turns your computer into a high speed disk duplicating machine equalling the performance of many dedicated hardware diskette duplicators costing thousands of dollars. Comments or suggestions for improving EZ-DisKlone will be appreciated. EZ-DisKlone requires an IBM PC or compatible with 256K of RAM. Display adapters known to work with EZ-DisKlone are the IBM monochrome (MDA), color (CGA), enhanced graphics (EGA), and video graphics array (VGA) adapters. EZ-DisKlone supports all common 5¬" and 3«" formats. #20# General help for all menus: This menu is broken up into two basic windows. The window at the top of your screen shows several options to choose from. The window at the bottom of the screen expands on what will occur if you choose the highlighted option (the one that has a different background color). Options may be selected in one of two ways. You can either press the first letter of the desired command or move the highlight bar over the desired option and press enter. To move the highlight bar use either the space bar, up arrow, down arrow, left arrow, or right arrow. You can also use home to move to the first top line item on the menu. Using the first letter of a command only works in the ACTIVE window. If you don't have any pulldown then the active window is the top window. Once you pulldown one of the options that becomes the active window. You must use one of the commands in the pulldown once it is active. You can always use Escape to back out of the pulldown and return to the top menu. #21# You are now using the EZ-DisKlone Main Menu. From here you can access the main functional areas of EZ-DisKlone. Refer to the On-Line Manual to get a feel for what a fully featured diskette duplicator can do. An additional status window is displayed near the bottom of your screen. It shows you the status for load, copy, compare, and format. A time in seconds is displayed after each type of operation. This shows you the time it took for the previous load, copy, etc. If 0 seconds is displayed, then you haven't performed an operation to allow EZ-DisKlone to time that function. EZ-DisKlone uses a "smart" form of counting where the copy and compare counters are reset to zero when you load a disk. That way they always provide you information relative to the disk you are working with. Please note that an abbreviated directory window will appear in the middle right of your screen as soon as a valid source diskette has been loaded. It will show the diskette volume label (if any) and first four file names. We have tried to design EZ-DisKlone to let you get your job done quickly and easily. Please feel free to forward any suggestions for improvement to us at EZX Publishing, Attn: EZ-DisKlone Author. #90# EZ-DisKlone couldn't locate your path. Are you sure you entered the correct path to get to your file. Computers are dumb, you have to tell them everything. #100# Drive was not ready for read/write. Please ensure you have a floppy in the drive and the drive door is closed. Sometimes on very fast AT compatible computers with 1.2 Mb diskette drives the drive can't respond quickly enough. In this case try the operation again or add a utility to modify the timeout on the drive. Several programs are available to fix this disk drive timeout problem. #250# An error was detected while trying to read your source diskette. Please ensure the diskette is inserted in the specified drive and that the drive door is closed. Also you might try to take the diskette out and re-insert it back into the drive. Sometimes the diskette isn't centered correctly within the disk drive. The source was not loaded so you will not be able to make any copies. All standard 160K, 180K, 320K, 360K and 1.2M 5¬" and 720K/1.44M 3«" diskette formats are supported. #300# EZ-DisKlone could not perform the requested operation. This screen gives help related to the format and copy diskette operations. An error occured during the requested operation. Listed below are some helpful hints with a detailed error listing provided on the next screen. Please ensure: 1. The diskette isn't write protected. 2. There really is a diskette in the destination drive. 3. There is no obvious physical damage to the diskette. 4. You aren't trying to save to a 1.2 Mb diskette in a 360 Kb disk drive or a 1.44M diskette as a 720K disk. 5. You don't have any disk cache software that is trying to buffer writes to your floppy drive. 6. You really do have the specified destination drive. This error may be generated on some hard disk based systems where you boot from the hard disk. Try booting from a floppy containing your DOS. The problem may go away. We have seen this happen with certain versions of DOS, specifically Compaq DOS 3.31 and IBM PC DOS 4.0. We will continue to research the problem and provide an update ASAP! The next help screen will provide a detailed explanation of the error codes. #301# Error codes: Code Description ÍÍÍÍ ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ 0 Unable to bring the diskette in drive up to speed for operation 1 Bad command: invalid request made to diskette controller 2 Bad address mark: sector ID marking invalid or not found 3 Write protect error: attempt to write on protected diskette 4 Bad sector: requested sector not on diskette 8 DMA failure 9 DMA boundary error: attempt to DMA outside 64K area 16 Bad CRC: diskette read found invalid parity check of data 32 Controller failed: diskette controller malfunction 64 Bad seek: move to requested track failed 128 Time out: drive did not respond Note: The description of these error codes were obtained from several sources for the IBM PC. The descriptions are very generic because there can be a wide variety of problems return the same error code. We don't mean to be cryptic but there is really no way to return a specific error code for every possible error condition. #700# You must first load a diskette before you can perform operations using it. Use the load disk option to load a diskette. Did you have a disk error on the previous read? Only diskettes which have been read into memory can be written back out. If you are using this option to format diskettes first format a clean master diskette using your DOS. Load that diskette into EZ-DisKlone. Turn the forced format option on for best results. You can now save as many copies of the diskette as desired. The result is the same as using DOS's format command but is faster. #800# Use of this option is highly recommended for companies producing diskettes which need to be read on the widest range of computers. By forcing the format of a diskette you guarantee that data is laid down cleanly on the new tracks. If you simply write over old data without reformatting the diskette it can cause some problems with 1.2 Mb floppy drives. The 1.2 Mb drives are very picky on the AT. By reformatting the floppy it helps readability. Use of the forced format option will cause the copy operation to take about 50% longer than saving to a formatted floppy without forced format. If you are constantly saving to blank unformatted diskettes it is strongly recommended that you set the default at forced format. Without forced format EZ-DisKlone first tries to write to the diskette, if that fails it will then set forced format to on for this one copy only. You can save the one or two seconds test time by telling EZ-DisKlone to just go ahead and format the floppy without testing to see if the diskette is already formatted. Note: If you are always working with unformatted diskettes, using this option will save you about 1/2 second per copy. EZ-DisKlone, like DOS, first tries to write to the floppy before resorting to formatting. You are saving the time it takes to determine the floppy isn't formatted. #850# Use of this option is highly recommended for companies which reuse high quality previously formatted defect free diskettes. Since the entire diskette surface isn't checked, this option could create problems for questionable diskettes. We recommend its use only on defect free high quality diskettes! Never under any condition use this option if the diskette hasn't been previously formatted! Now the good news. A diskette can be re-formatted in as little as two seconds using this option! If the diskette hasn't been previously formatted, DON'T use this option!! As an extra protection, we have added a check to ensure you don't quick format only the first track of an unformatted diskette. We check the second diskette track and then default to formatting the entire diskette if the second track can't be read. #900# This option allows you to define the default path for accessing the on-line manual and context sensitive help. Make sure you include the index file (.INX) along with the help/manual file (.TXT) in the specified directory. #1000# This option allows you to enable/disable the sound or beeps on errors. Some people find programs that beep on errors to be annoying (me for one). This option will allow you to disable ALL warning beeps in EZ-DisKlone. #1100# This menu allows you to change all the colors used in EZ-DisKlone. To change a default color - first use the up or down arrow key to select the color, then type in the new color. When you have changed all the colors press Ctrl+D to display these colors in a sample window. As with all installation options, these changes will not be used until you choose the retain option on the main menu. This allows you to experiment with the installation options and then not have to lose your original defaults. Please keep in mind the foreground text colors can be 0-15, the background 0-7. If you choose a text color the same as a background color then the text will disappear. You may notice some of your installed color combinations result in invisible lines on the Ctrl+D popup window. Please be careful not to choose this color for one of your text colors!! Note: For many of the EZ-DisKlone installable options and user inputs you will see a prompt containing the characters . If you count the number of 's you will find the maximum number of characters that can be entered. Escape is used throughout EZ-DisKlone to signal "I want out". Press Enter, up arrow, down arrow, or whatever is asked for to enter the desired value. Escape will throw away any immediate changes and get you out of the area you are in. #1101# Please note that the background color (0-7) is one digit long and the foreground color (0-15) is two digits long. That is why you will see the input prompt (the  s) change it's width as you go between the colors. #1200# This screen shows the possible combinations of colors in EZ-DisKlone. If you are using a non IBM display adapter you may have to "play" with the colors to get a pleasing combination. EZ-DisKlone defaults to colors that work well with the IBM Color Graphics Adapter, IBM Enhanced Graphics Adapter, and IBM Monochrome Display Adapter. On some monochrome display adapter clones you may need to alter a foreground text color to get the background to change intensity. The default combination of colors will work on any 100% IBM PC compatible display adapter! #1300# EZ-DisKlone allows the help & manual paths, program colors, etc. to be saved in a configuration file. If no configuration file is specified on the command line (ex. C:>EZDK /C=C:\EZDK\MyConfg.CNF) when you call up EZ-DisKlone then EZ-DisKlone will use the default name of EZDK.CNF. You are being asked for the name of the configuration file to load. You may have several configuration files saved under different names. Example: BW.CNF (for black and white composite monitors attached to a composite color card), etc. Please make sure that the configuration file you are asking EZ-DisKlone to use is really an EZ-DisKlone configuration file! Remember you can always press ESC if you got into this area by accident. #1400# EZ-DisKlone allows the default help/manual paths, program colors, etc to be saved in a configuration file. If no configuration file is specified on the command line (ex. C:>EZDK /C=C:\EZDK\MyConfg.CNF) when you call up EZ-DisKlone then EZ-DisKlone will use the default name of EZDK.CNF. You are being asked for the name of the configuration file to save all the program defaults to. You may have several configuration files saved under different names. Examples: BW.CNF (for black and white composite monitors attached to a composite color card), etc. Please remember you can always press ESC if you got into this area by accident. #1650# This screen allows you to define the different drives on your computer and their maximum capacity. You specify the capacity for each drive by typing the drive letter, an equal sign, and then the drive capacity. Do not use any spaces within the specification. For example: A=360 is ok, but A= 360 or A=3 60 are not! You can change the maximum capacity of any drive or all drives by simply editing the displayed values. Also, make sure the drive you specify is a DOS compatible drive. Only those drives normally addressable through DOS via INT13 (a DOS standard access method) are supported. Editing keys: Keypad Home, End, left arrow, right arrow, insert, delete, and much more. Many of the older computers don't directly support the newer drives using the BIOS calls. Because of this, we allow you to override the information we obtain from BIOS calls. Some of the older computers may report that a drive may not exist or be the wrong size when we inquire thru BIOS calls. If your configuration differs from the one shown, add additional drives and correct capacities. After you save the configuration, EZ-DisKlone will use your information and ignore the initial drive information provided by BIOS calls. #1675# The only valid capacities in K are 360, 720, 1200, or 1440! EZ-DisKlone could not understand the capacity you specified. One of two possibilities exist. Either you specified information in an invalid format or the capacity you specified for one of the drives is not valid. Assume drive A: is a 720K drive and B: is a 360K drive. Valid command: A=720 B=360 Invalid commands: A=360 B=720 or A=720 B=3 60 or A=720 B=320 Do not use any spaces in the drive=capacity statement. Ensure the capacity you specify is the maximum capacity supported by the drive and that the drive is a DOS compatible drive. An arrow is probably shown on your screen under a section of the capacity specification. This shows where we were in working with your desired formats when the error was encountered. Usually the arrow will appear immediately after the end of the statement that caused the error. For example: A=160 B=360 As the capacities are looked at, the arrow would be pointing to the space after 160 (it had just finished getting the actual maximum drive capacity). 160 is an invalid maximum capacity! #1700# EZ-DisKlone "spools" your diskette to a specified drive when you run out of normal RAM in your computer's main memory. When working with 3«" disks, your computer can't store the entire diskette in memory. We send the portion that can't be stored in main memory to a disk file. This option allows you to specify which drive will contain the temporary file. A file by the name of VIRTDISK.$$$ is created in the root of the specified spool drive and used for the temporary storage of the portion of the diskette that won't fit into memory. This file is created for spooling and then erased after you finish using EZ-DisKlone. Please ensure there is about one megabyte of free disk space available on the specified drive. Not all of this will be used but it is the suggested minimum to prevent any possible problems. For higher performance, specify a large RAM disk as the spool drive. This will allow EZ-DisKlone to spool to a high speed device, making the copying of larger diskettes very fast. Specify your extended or expanded memory as a RAM disk and install EZ-DisKlone to spool to this drive for much faster operation. Drives A-Z are allowed for spooling. Do NOT spool to the same drive that you are copying! Using floppy drives for spooling is not recommended. #1800# This option allows you to address any floppy drive attached to your computer as long as it is supported in your computer's Basic Input Output System (BIOS). Press the letter corresponding to the drive you want to access (example: G for diskette drive G:). Special checks are performed to ensure that you don't use a hard disk or similar type drive for this operation. Most of us don't appreciate it when a program accidentally reformats our hard disk. Most computers support drives A: and B: as floppy drives (removable media drives). Hard disks normally start at C: and run thru Z: (and aren't normally removable). Some computers are a little different, maybe even a little strange. They may even have a floppy drive addressed as G:. We have built in support for floppies addressed as A: thru Z: as long as your computer fully supports them in its BIOS. We also work with most drives that use a device driver (in the CONFIG.SYS file) to extend the ROM BIOS. #1810# The floppy drive you have selected is not recognized by your system as a normal floppy drive. We ask your computer using INT13 in your computer's Basic Input Output System (BIOS) what drives you have. It reported that the drive you selected is not a floppy drive. Some add-on floppy drives may provide you with some software that "tricks" your computer into thinking it has additional drives. This kind of thing normally works around the BIOS and isn't compatible with normal BIOS calls. We can't guarantee proper operation with your diskette drives in these cases. #2000# EZ-DisKlone ran out of memory while trying to perform the requested operation. Generally this will only happen if you have limited free system memory (RAM) and try to perform an operation that requires a lot of memory. Possible corrective measures: 1. Limit the number of memory resident programs you load. 2. Upgrade your system RAM if you have less than 640K. 3. Provide additional free disk space on the drive you specified for the spooling of large floppies. 4. Allocate more space to your RAM disk if you have chosen one for higher performance overflow spooling (virtual memory). #20050# Quick startup info: EZ-DisKlone is a diskette duplication program which lets you, the user, mass produce diskettes quickly and easily. It allows you to read a diskette once and then make as many copies as you want. EZ-DisKlone supports 5¬" 160K, 180K, 320K, 360K, and 1.2M; also 3«" 720K and 1.44M. To copy a diskette use the Load pulldown off the main menu. Insert the diskette you would like to copy. Next tell EZ-DisKlone where you put the diskette by selecting the Load pulldown and pressing A for drive A: or B for drive B:. Your diskette will be loaded into memory. Take out your master source diskette and place the diskette you would like to make the copy on into a drive, it doesn't matter which drive. Now it is time to tell EZ-DisKlone to make the copy. Select the Copy pulldown and press A to make the copy in drive A: or B for drive B:. EZ-DisKlone will automatically format your floppy if it isn't already formatted. Repeat this step to make as many copies as you want. Isn't it nice not to have to reload your source diskette each time? EZ-DisKlone now supports command line use! For example: EZDK A: A: F1 is available to call up help while you are using EZ-DisKlone. #20051# ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ Commonly Asked Questions ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ 1. Will EZ-DisKlone (EZDK) duplicate copy protected diskettes? No. EZDK will only duplicate unprotected diskettes with no bad sectors. 2. How does EZDK manage to copy even 1.44M floppies in a single pass? EZDK holds as much of the diskette in memory as possible. The rest of the diskette is spooled to a file on another drive. Use a RAM drive to provide maximum performance (lightning fast). #20100# EZ-DisKlone allows you to read an entire diskette into memory then make as many copies as you want without reading the master diskette again. To do this it must retain an image of the master diskette in memory. This image can take up to 720K of storage space. The portion of the diskette that won't fit into memory is spooled to another drive. EZ-DisKlone out performs DOS's diskcopy both in speed and safety of the operation. EZ-DisKlone speeds up the access times of your disk drive allowing quicker reads and writes. It also verifys the copy by checking the CRC written to the diskette during the copy process. When making a copy, EZ-DisKlone (unless told otherwise) will check the diskette to see if it is already formatted and then proceed either with the copy or the format and copy. Just feed it diskettes, you don't need to worry about the destination diskette. Nothing could be easier! System requirements: An IBM PC or totally compatible clone, 256K of RAM, and IBM PC DOS version 3.0 or later. EZ-DisKlone should work with any version of MS DOS 3.0 or later but has not been tested with all the possible MS DOS versions. #20200# ÕÍÍÍÍÍÍÍËÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍËÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ͸ ³ PCDOS º 360K 5¬" Diskette º 1.44M 3«" Diskette ³ ³ ÄÄÄÄÄ ÇÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄ×ÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄ´ ³ EZDK º Load ³ Save ³FmtSav³Formatº Load ³ Save ³FmtSav³Format³ ÆÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÎÍÍÍÍÍÍØÍÍÍÍÍÍØÍÍÍÍÍÍØÍÍÍÍÍÍÎÍÍÍÍÍÍØÍÍÍÍÍÍØÍÍÍÍÍÍØÍÍÍÍÍ͵ ³ DOS º24 sec³41 sec³83 sec³44 secº60 sec³92 sec³178sec³95 sec³ ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ×ÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄ×ÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄ´ ³ EZDK º18 sec³30 sec³50 sec³40 secº35 sec³59 sec³95 sec³80 sec³ ÔÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÊÍÍÍÍÍÍÏÍÍÍÍÍÍÏÍÍÍÍÍÍÏÍÍÍÍÍÍÊÍÍÍÍÍÍÏÍÍÍÍÍÍÏÍÍÍÍÍÍÏÍÍÍÍÍ; Notes: Times may change as we continue to improve EZ-DisKlone. Please note that the faster your computer, the more EZ-DisKlone out performs IBM PC DOS. We used a large RAM disk for the tests. We used freshly formatted diskettes that were approximately 75% full. Less full diskettes will result in far higher performance! EZ-DisKlone can make multiple copies per read, DOS can't. EZ-DisKlone is faster than DOS (2-3x) for multiple operations because it doesn't reload the source and makes copies of even 1.44M diskettes in a single pass! We assumed 10 seconds for several manual swaps of 1.44M 3«" diskettes for loads/saves. #20201# All benchmarks are based on version 4.00 of EZ-DisKlone running on an IBM PS/2 model 70. Run your own timing tests using your hardware, don't take our word that we are faster. The only true test of how quickly EZ-DisKlone will perform diskette operations on your hardware is to actually time them. We invite you to put EZ-DisKlone to the test. The above times are affected by the DOS version, both by its revision and its source (IBM, Compaq, etc). Any small change in your hardware may throw off timing of EZ-DisKlone. Memory resident programs slow down EZ-DisKlone and may drastically (up to 50%) slow the disk operations. Even such a small thing as displaying the track number while copying took many hours of work to speed up to where it didn't slow down operations. All tests were run with IBM PC DOS with no memory resident programs. If your timing tests show results radically different from the above figures please write us. If you did better, we will praise EZ-DisKlone, if you did worse we will try to find something to blame it on. Please note that we far out perform DOS on 1.44M 3«" media because of our ability to work with the diskette in a single pass without requiring you to swap diskettes. We also use "smart" loading/saving. If your diskettes aren't almost full, our performance will be even higher! #20300# HISTORY OF REVISIONS: ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ EZ-DisKlone Plus v3.00 Nov 1990 This is the initial Shareware release of EZ-DisKlone Plus. Provides all the functions of custom hardware disk duplicators costing thousands of dollars. EZ-DisKlone Plus v3.10 Feb 1991 EZ-DisKlone Plus now compresses the floppy disk files (.FDFs) using high speed assembly language compression routines. Uses "smart" data loading. EZ-DisKlone Plus v4.10 Sep 1993 Added full support for RAM/EMS/XMS. Use the memory directly thru our new drivers! Quick format plus much more! EZ-DisKlone vYDK5c Mar 1994 Came out with a low cost version to address the needs for a simple, single pass, high performance disk duplicator. Users can now choose either our low or high end product! #20500# GENERAL: ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ 1. EZ-DisKlone was developed by Dave Black for EZX Corporation. 2. EZ-DisKlone was written in C with the core disk routines and several other speed critical routines in high speed assembly language. The source for EZ-DisKlone consists of about 6,000 lines of code. #20900# Unable to run EZXINFO.EXE - The latest information on our products! Please ensure EZXINFO.EXE is in your current working directory. Are you out of free RAM (see the bottom line of this screen)? If it shows less than about 80K, try running EZXINFO.EXE directly from DOS. If EZXINFO.EXE has been lost, call: Voice 1-713-280-9900 BBS 1-713-280-8180 FAX 1-713-280-0099 #20950# Unable to run SUPPORT.EXE - The latest information for technical support! Please ensure SUPPORT.EXE is in your current working directory. Are you out of free RAM (see the bottom line of this screen)? If it shows less than about 80K, try running SUPPORT.EXE directly from DOS. If SUPPORT.EXE has been lost, call: Voice 1-713-280-9900 BBS 1-713-280-8180 FAX 1-713-280-0099 #END#