This is a PRERELEASE of FormatZIP - a utility to format Iomega ZIP
drives for MSDOS PCs. This is impossible with the usual format command
of AmigaOS because with the usual format command you would theoretically
create a ZIP disk in floppy disk format. The ZIP disks used on PCs are
in "harddisk format" with one single partition and CrossDOSFilesystem
cannot create this partition table.

FormatZIP was compiled with GCC for Amiga - sources are included

FormatZIP is distributed under the GNU Public License - see file COPYING

Usage :

FormatZIP <dosdevice>

<dosdevice> : This is the device name of the ZIP drive in PC format. On my
              machine this is ZPC0C (using the supplied mount-list entry).
              You can specify the dos device with or without an column.

Example:

FormatZIP ZPC0C:              - format ZIP disk in ZPC0C:


CAUTION : If you select the wrong device your harddisk will become an
          EMPTY!!!!!! ZIP :-) I am NOT responsible for unrecoverable
          loss of data!!!

NOTE    : FormatZIP creates a single harddisk partition on a harddisk type
          ZIP disk. This is the format which is used for pre-formatted
          ZIP medias. You can read this type of media with the 
          CrossDOSFilesystem if the last letter of your DOS device name
          is a "C" (e.g. ZPC0C , ZIP0C, ZPC). Use the supplied mount
          entry to use FormatZIP.

Future :

- lock all DOS devices of this ZIP drive while formatting
  (this will cause a diskchange afterwards on all devices assigned to this 
   ZIP drive)
- Don't hardcode the drive geometry - this would make this tool usable
  for Jaz drives, too. For this I'll need information about MSDOS 
  MBR
- using CrossDOSFileSystem for formatting of the partition.
  Problem  : V2.1 CrossFS is buggy
  Solution : Use CrossFS for OS 3.0+ - use workaround for OS 2.1 
             workaround might not be able to support Jaz
 

Author :

Please EMail bug reports & suggestions to:

Alexander Feigl <Alexander.Feigl@gmx.de>




Changes since V0.2:

- using DOS device names now - new command line syntax

- Format ZIP asks for a confirmation before formatting the ZIP

- More modularited source code

- Does lock ZIP CrossDOS-handler while formatting

- Does cause an disk change 

- FormatZIP now distributed under GNU Public License

Changes since V0.1:

- small bugfix : program terminated before writing bootblock and
                 directory

- mount entry included in distribution

 PERMSSN    UID  GID    PACKED    SIZE  RATIO     CRC       STAMP          NAME
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
drwxr-xr-x  1000/100         0       0 ****** -lhd- 0000 Aug  9  1998 FormatZIP/
-rw-r--r--  1000/100      7000   17983  38.9% -lh5- 8f29 Aug  9  1998 FormatZIP/COPYING
drwxr-xr-x  1000/100         0       0 ****** -lhd- 0000 Aug  9  1998 FormatZIP/DOSDrivers/
-rw-r--r--  1000/100       366     671  54.5% -lh5- eb96 Jun  8  1998 FormatZIP/DOSDrivers/ZPC0C
-rw-r--r--  1000/100       309     532  58.1% -lh5- 1656 Jun  8  1998 FormatZIP/DOSDrivers/ZPC0C.info
-rwxr-xr-x  1000/100      6315   10788  58.5% -lh5- e91d Aug  9  1998 FormatZIP/FormatZIP
-rw-r--r--  1000/100      1213    2696  45.0% -lh5- 0873 Aug  9  1998 FormatZIP/FormatZIP.readme
drwxr-xr-x  1000/100         0       0 ****** -lhd- 0000 Aug  9  1998 FormatZIP/Source/
-rw-r--r--  1000/100      1106    2794  39.6% -lh5- 20bd Aug  9  1998 FormatZIP/Source/DOSDevice.c
-rw-r--r--  1000/100       651    1279  50.9% -lh5- 31c4 Aug  9  1998 FormatZIP/Source/DOSDevice.h
-rw-r--r--  1000/100       991    2227  44.5% -lh5- 9b22 Aug  9  1998 FormatZIP/Source/DriveAccess.c
-rw-r--r--  1000/100       622    1164  53.4% -lh5- ec70 Aug  9  1998 FormatZIP/Source/DriveAccess.h
-rw-r--r--  1000/100      1487    3691  40.3% -lh5- 3492 Aug  9  1998 FormatZIP/Source/FAT.c
-rw-r--r--  1000/100       562    1028  54.7% -lh5- 1846 Aug  9  1998 FormatZIP/Source/FAT.h
-rw-r--r--  1000/100      1235    2662  46.4% -lh5- 9d15 Aug  9  1998 FormatZIP/Source/FormatZIP.c
-rw-r--r--  1000/100      1420    4056  35.0% -lh5- f67a Aug  9  1998 FormatZIP/Source/MBR.c
-rw-r--r--  1000/100       563    1026  54.9% -lh5- 4b00 Aug  9  1998 FormatZIP/Source/MBR.h
-rw-r--r--  1000/100       181     260  69.6% -lh5- d35a Aug  9  1998 FormatZIP/Source/Makefile
-rw-r--r--  1000/100       626    2913  21.5% -lh5- a21b Apr 11  1998 FormatZIP.info
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
 Total        19 files   24647   55770  44.2%            Aug 12  1998