TYPE "FLOPPY" AND PRESS ENTER TO GET SHORT DESCRIPTION OF FLOPPY 1.1 USAGE

Floppy 1.1 is a small utility for backup and restoring your information on
floppy disks with "guarantee". Anyone knows that standard process of
information saving on floppy disks is very unsafe. If you can not read the
beginning track, you can read nothing! If only one block of your file
is unreadable - you can not use the whole file! The data loss during
saving them on floppy disks is very probable even if you use several copies.

Floppy uses self-corrected codes when it backs-up information on floppy
disks. A small number of tracks (less or equal to 10 in this version) is
used for control codes saving, others are used for saving your information.
For example, you backed-up the file with 8 control tracks. Then, if any 8
(or less) tracks on this disk become unreadable, you still can reconstruct
your file! This means that you can back-up your files on floppy disks with
"guarantee" at the expense of only 5-6% of its storage. Floppy does not use 
standard file system, therefore, a damage of the beginning track does not cause
any additional difficulties. Moreover, you can use disks "unformattable" by 
standard formatter.

Floppy is a command line utility. It works on IBM-compatible computers under 
operation systems MS DOS (version above 3.3), PC DOS, Windows 3.1,
Windows 95-98, Windows NT. The functionality of this program was checked for
file systems FAT-16, FAT-32, NTFS, networks Microsoft and Novell and for
floppy disks 1.2 and 1.44 Mb. I believe that Floppy will work under DOS-
emulator of OS/2 and for 2.88 Mb floppy disks but I had no opportunity to
check it. System resources are quite small - 286 or above microprocessor,
450 Kb free RAM under 1 Mb and about 100 Kb on hard disk. Current version has
the following restrictions:
    - the number of control tracks must be less or equal to 10
    - only one file may be backed-up on one floppy disk but you can back-up
      a large file on several disks (you should unite small files before
      their backup, possibly, by one of popular archive programs)
    - Floppy does not support long names (DOS compatible names are used 
      instead)

Usage of Floppy 1.1

 To back-up the file on disks -
                                floppy b <disk:> <file name> [/e=nn] [/a],
   where disk: - target disk name, a: or b:
         file name - source file name (or path)
         nn - the number of control tracks (8 by default)
         /a - this option is for creating floppy disks "autorestoring".
         In a process of backup Floppy creates DOS area in the first 45 kb
         of disk and writes there a short program named restore.exe and name
         and length of backed-up file. Then you can restore your information
         simply by clicking restore.exe under your favorite file manager.
   In a process of backup the program will prompt you for inserting next
   floppy disks until the whole file will be backed-up.
   ATTENTION! Floppy does not check the existence of any information on
   target disk, therefore, if you insert wrong disk you can lose information
   contained on it. As Floppy writes information in the system area of
   floppy disk, you must reformat it if you want to use this disk as standard.
   Example: floppy b a: myfiles.arj /e=10

 To restore a file from disks -
                                floppy r <disk:> [file name]
   If file name is omitted, program uses the name of backed-up file.
   Example: floppy r a:  or  floppy r a: newname.arj

 To identify disks -
                                floppy i <disk:>
   The program reads a disk and displays name and length of backed-up file.
   Example: floppy i a:

 To test disks -
                                floppy t <disk:>
   This operation displays name and length of backed-up file and number of
   succesfully restored tracks on the disk and amount of reserve. If the
   reserve becomes less then 5 tracks, the program displays additional
   warning.

 To reformat disks  -
                                floppy f <disk:>
   This operation is usefull for "unformatabble" disks (with bad beginning
   tracks). In other cases this opeation is not necessary.

Included files are:

  floppy.exe    - utility Floppy
  frestore.exe  - separate utility for restoring previously backed-up
                  information. This file may be distributed without
                  any restrictions.
  file_id.diz   - short description
  floppy.txt    - this manual
  readme.bat    - batch file for displaying this manual.

A LIMITED WARRANTY
====================

The entire and exclusive liability and remedy for breach of this limited
warranty shall be limited to replacement of copies with detected errors
and shall not include or extend to any claim for or right to recover any
other damages, including but not limited to, loss of profit, data, or use
of the software, or special, incidental, or consequential damages or other
similar claims, even if author has been specifically advised of the
possibility of such damages.

The distribution of the file floppy.exe is prohibited, you may distribute
the file frestore.exe and text files.
All rights are reserved by Alex Voit, Vladivostok, Russia.
E-mail: avoit@mail.primorye.ru
