The following document will describe how you can use CPDRead,CPDWrite or CPCTrans.

This method requires a floppy disc drive and a Windows 95/Windows 98 start-up disc.

Creating a start-up disc in Windows 95 or Windows 98

To create a start-up disc, you will need a blank floppy disc and the Windows 95 or 98 CD-ROM.

Follow these instructions:

  1. Click on the "Start" button on the taskbar
  2. Select "Settings" then "Control Panel". The Control Panel window will open.
  3. From the Control panel window select "Add/Remove programs"
  4. Select the "Startup disk" tab.
  5. Now insert a blank disc into the disc drive.
  6. Finally, select "Create disk" to make the startup disc.

    The start-up disc will be created using files from the Windows CD.

Booting into a pure MS-DOS mode using Windows 95 or Windows 98

  1. Click on the "Start" button on the taskbar
  2. Select "Shutdown"
  3. Choose "Restart into MS-DOS mode".

    Now wait for the computer to restart.

Booting into a pure MS-DOS mode using a start-up disc

If you use Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Windows XP then you can't boot into a pure MS-DOS mode because it doesn't exist on these systems. The tools will not work without a pure-DOS mode because Windows will stop a program accessing the hardware of the PC direct as CPDRead and CPDWrite need.

If you have a friend with Windows 95 or Windows 98 then they can create a start-up which you can use to boot your computer into a pure MS-DOS mode.

Follow these instructions:

  1. Insert Win95/Win98 startup disc into your PC floppy disc drive,
  2. Select "Shutdown" and then "Restart". Windows will now shut down and the computer will restart. You must leave the startup floppy disc in the disc drive.
  3. You will then see the normal boot procedure, but the computer should start reading from the floppy disc in the disc drive. (if it does not, then your computer BIOS is not configured to boot from drive A).

    If you see text messages during booting, then you may also see "Starting Windows 95..." (if you are using a Win95 startup disc), or "Starting Windows 98..." (if you are using a Win98 startup disc)

  4. You may then see additional messages, but then it will stop at a "A:\>" prompt.

    Now you are using a MS-DOS command-line, which is equivalent to rebooting into MS-DOS mode from Windows 95 or 98.

  5. At this point, you should follow the instructions for using CPDRead/CPDWrite/CPCTrans from a MS-DOS prompt.

Creating a test disc for CPDRead and CPCTrans

For this you will need:

  1. Open a "DOS-Prompt" or "Command-line prompt" and enter the following: 
    format a: /f:720 /u

    This will start the "format" program, and tell it to format the floppy disc in drive "a" to 720K double-density disc format.

  2. The following message will be displayed: 
    Insert new disk for drive A:
and press ENTER when ready...
  3. Press a key and the format process will begin. Sometimes the existing format of the disc will be checked and this can take some time and you will hear lots of noises comming from the disc drive. Eventually you should see a message like: 
    0 percent complete
    and the real format procedure will begin. This message will update with the progress of the format procedure.
  4. After formatting is complete, and at the "Volume label" prompt, press the RETURN key and you will then see the message 
    Format complete.
    and a summary of the free space and format details for the disc.
  5. At the question "Format another (Y/N)" press "N" to return to the command-prompt.

At this point you will have a floppy disc formatted to 720K double density disc format. You can use this disc to test CPDRead and CPCTrans.

You can test if the format was successful by typing: 

DIR A:

You will then see something similar to this: 

D:\>dir a:
 Volume in drive A has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 90CD-C531

 Directory of A:\

File Not Found

D:\>

Testing your system for CPDRead, CPDWrite and CPCTrans compatibility

CPDRead and CPDWrite do not work on all PC systems. These steps can be used to determine if they will work with your setup.

Testing your system for CPDRead compatibility

  1. Create a test disc (follow the instructions given above)
  2. Restart the computer to a pure MS-DOS mode:
  3. At the MS-DOS command-line, go to the directory where you installed CPDRead.
  4. Type: 
    CPDRead test.dsk

Testing your system for CPDWrite compatibility

  1. Restart the computer to a pure MS-DOS mode:
  2. Type: 
    CPDWrite test.dsk

Checking the filesystem of your Hard drive in Windows 2000

DOS is a old operating system and can only read from discs or a hard drive which have been formatted to the "FAT" filesystem ("FAT12" in the case of floppy discs and small capacity hard drives, or "FAT16" in the case of large capacity hard drives).

DOS can't read "NTFS", so you will not be able to access any hard drive which is formatted to this filesystem.

Therefore, if you boot into DOS mode using a startup disc, and you only have NTFS as your only filesystem, then you will not be able to access this filesystem in DOS mode. (In this case, you should direct the program to create the output in a temporary RAM-Disk/RAM-Drive. You can then copy the created files back to a PC formatted floppy disc. The Windows 98 startup disc will create a RAM-Disk during boot up.)

Follow these steps to identify the filesystem on your hard drives:

  1. Boot the computer into Windows
  2. Using the mouse, double click on the "My Computer" icon. A list of the storage devices (floppy disc drive, hard drive, CD Drive, DVD Drive etc) will be displayed with their corresponding drive identification (e.g. (A:) ).
  3. Using the mouse, select each of the hard drive icons in turn:

Tips: