Force Media Change

INSTRUCTIONS

        The  ST's  operating system caches  disk  information.  It 
detects floppy disk changes by watching the write protect line. If 
it  hasn't detected a floppy disk being removed,  it will use  the 
directory  information in RAM.  Some computers have  faulty  write
protect lines,  and do not detect when a disk is removed.  This is 
quite  dangerous,  as your disks may become corrupted if you  read 
from a disk,  replace it with a different one,  and write to  that 
disk drive. [On a one drive system you can get around this problem 
by constantly swapping between calling drive A:  A:  and  B: which
forces GEMDOS to update the disk cache, but  that is a  nuisance.]

        You  can  tell if your ST has this problem  by  opening  a 
DeskTop  window,  replacing  the disk with a  different  one,  and 
pressing Escape. The window should be updated with the contents of 
the new disk.  [I am not sure what causes this problem, but I have 
heard  that it is somewhat common among new Megas.  I  wrote  this 
program  for my (cheap!) nextdoor neighbor,  whose 2  year  old(?) 
520STFM recently developed this problem.]

        Anyway, this program will "Force a Media Change", meaning, 
in  essence,  that  the  ST will always read from  a  disk  before 
writing to it.  The program will take up around 1K of RAM, and may 
be placed in an AUTO folder.  If you want to use this program as a 
(temporary?) solution,  be sure to ALWAYS run it before doing  any 
disk I/O.

        I  hope this program helps somebody out there (besides  my 
nextdoor  neighbor!),  and  if anybody knows the solution  to  the 
problem  (besides replacing the drive),  please let  me  know.  My 
address is

Larry McConnell
97 North Road
Bedford, MA 01730

and my Genie addresss is L.McConnell. [Please send all donations
(hahaha hohohoho) to my street address. :-]

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