Here are the facts:
1) NO NT based windows (i.e. NT4.00,Win2K, WinXP, Win2003) can
deal with the 1.722 kb floppies.
This is due to the Operating System Hardware Layer and CANNOT be
bypassed. (no more than 80 tracks on floppies)
2) The format used by NASLITE is a "TRUE" 1722 format, it is NOT the
Microsoft distribution Format of 1680K sometimes called 1.72 as it gives
1,720,320 bytes
Let us clear things up:
1.44 (Normal) Floppy 80 Trks 2 Hds 18 Secs 512 B/S =1,474,560 bytes
1.68 (MS DMF) Floppy 80 Trks 2 Hds 21 Secs 512 B/S =1,720,320 bytes
1.72 (NASLITE) Floppy 82 Trks 2 Hds 21 Secs 512 B/S =1,763,328 bytes
3) This last format can be made with DOS and ANY DOS-based windows,
(i.e. Win95, Win98, WinME) by using an utility, seen below in point 6)
4) All ports of Rawrite to NT systems are of NO use as seen in point 1)
above.
5) Dos version of Rawrite is of NO use alone as it needs a previously
formatted floppy, however it is possible to use it from DOS after having
properly formatted the floppy with a tool like fdformat by Christoph H.
Hochstaetter.
6) There is a DOS tool that can create the NASLITE disk in one single
pass, formatting and copying image:
DCOPY 2.8 FAST by Jorgen Bosman
http://users.pandora.be/jbosman/applications.html
SYNTAX to be used is:
DCOPY [path]\NASLxxxx.img A: /F:1722 /S /V
(remember that you have to unpack the compressed NASLite-XXX.img.gz
with an unpacking utility and change the name to a compatible 8.3 format
before, suitable names are as follows:
NASLite-SMB.img.gz -> NASLite-SMB.img -> NASLSMB.img
NASLite-SMBG.img.gz -> NASLite-SMBG.img -> NASLSMBG.img
NASLite-FTP.img.gz -> NASLite-FTP.img -> NASLFTP.img
NASLite-FTPG.img.gz -> NASLite-FTPG.img -> NASLFTPG.img
NASLite-NFS.img.gz -> NASLite-NFS.img -> NASLNFS.img
NASLite-NFSG.img.gz -> NASLite-NFSG.img -> NASLNFSG.img)
Jorgen Bosman also made an NT version of DCOPY, do not try to be
smart, it does not work with this format, see 1) above
7) Nowadays floppies are much worse than a few years ago, it might be
tricky to find a floppy that has no errors, and with the NASLITE image
you CANNOT have ANY defective sector. Strangely enough "bulk"
non-preformatted floppies are better for this purpose than "brand"
preformatted floppies.
However ALWAYS format the floppy to 1.44 by using
DCOPY A: /F:1440 /FO /V
BEFORE trying to write the NASLITE image as in 6)
I hope the above is useful.
jaclaz