sub-tile=Frequently Asked Questions

0. What is DISKED?
2. Does DISKED ever write to a disk?
3. Can DISKED damage my drive?
4. Can DISKED fix my broken disk?
5. What disk formats does DISKED support?
6. Some commands don't seem to work.  Like those dealing with files.
7. I get the message "write not enabled" when I try and write a
   sector to the disk.
8. Why does DISKED show a different number for the drive size than
   other programs like CHKDSK?
9. Why does DISKED show a different number of files on the disk?


0. What is DISKED?

   DISKED is a DISK EDitor for MS-DOS(tm).  It was originally created
   to recover erased file data and to edit disk sectors directly and
   has grown to a very powerful disk utility.  DISKED's main features
   are:

      o  sector editing                change directory entries
      o  binary file editing           file size is un-limited!
      o  search for data               find that lost file!
      o  read un-readable disks        even when DOS can not!
      o  repair damaged directories    even when CHKDSK can not!
      o  read foreign formats          CP/M, MAC, TAR, BACKUP disks

   You can also just gain a better understanding of disk formats
   in general!

   I have tried very hard to make sure that users will always know
   exactly where they are on the disk and what has just happened.

   DISKED should never be "frustrating" to use.  If you find that it
   is, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!

2. Does DISKED ever write to a disk?

   No.  Not by itself.  You can tell it to write a sector, but to
   protect against accidental writes, DISKED will not even let you
   do that until that feature is enabled by manually editing the
   DISKED.INI configuration file (see FAQ #7).  You can, however,
   always write things to normal DOS files.

3. Can DISKED damage my drive?

   No.  DISKED will let you modify the BOOT sector, the FAT sectors,
   or directories -- and if you do something wrong a disk or it's
   files may become unreadable to DOS -- you must know what you are
   doing in these areas.  DISKED will beep to warn you and will always
   ask for confirmation when attempting to write a sector in the BOOT
   or FAT areas.  I thought of disabling this feature but there just
   might be a time when this is wanted so I left it in.  See FAQ #7.

4. Can DISKED fix my broken disk?

   No.  DISKED is not meant to do that.  It's main feature is in
   recovering lost data by being able to read disks that other
   utilities can not.  Or to recover file data after the file's
   directory entry has been over-written (any file un-delete program
   can only un-delete a file when that file's directory enty is
   intact).

5. What disk formats does DISKED support?

   For hard drives, only standard DOS formats (XT/XT/IDE/EIDE, not
   SCSI, CD-ROM).  For floppies, just about any format that is
   physically readable by the drive hardware -- this means any
   PC format (I havn't tested 2.8M floppies), CP/M, MAC, etc.  Also,
   TAR floppies and backup floppies.

6. Some commands don't seem to work.  Like those dealing with files.

   DISKED defaults to not index the files on the disk.  To index
   all of the files (which can take a few seconds on large drives)
   you need do one of three things: 1) add an entry of "files yes" in
   the DISKED.INI file, 2) press Alt+F and then ^L from within DISKED,
   3) add a " +f" on the command line.

7. I get the message "write not enabled" when I try and write a
   sector to the disk.

   DISKED has two levels of enabling sector writes.  An entry
   *must* exist in the DISKED.INI file of "write yes" AND you *must*
   type Alt+W (or zw) to enable it from with DISKED.

8. Why does DISKED show a different number for the drive size than
   other programs like CHKDSK?

   DISKED calculates the drive size as the data space plus the
   ROOT directory area, the FAT area(s), and the BOOT sector.
   Some other programs will display just the data space.

9. Why does DISKED show a different number of files on the disk?

   DISKED does not count 0 length files.