gaby.de/Downloads/Diskinfo

Diskinfo - A program for analyzing disk formats

What is Diskinfo?

Diskinfo was born more than 10 years ago, during an age when data were mainly stored on floppy disks. At that time, it could happen that somebody gave you a pile of floppies and you didn't know what to do with them, because DOS wasn't able to read them. So I decided to write Diskinfo, a program that was able to analyse the format of the inserted floppy within a few seconds. In the course of time I added more features, as e.g. the processing of boot sector information and CDROM data.

On which Operating Systems Diskinfo is likely to run?

Diskinfo is a DOS program. This means that it'll run on plain DOS systems as well as on systems with DOS-based Windows versions (95, 98, ME). Anyway, it's recommended to run Diskinfo on the DOS command line, not in a DOS box. To achieve information about CD/DVD-ROM drives, please make sure that MSCDEX is loaded.
On Windows NT-based systems Diskinfo will only work partially, because its direct hardware accesses will usually be blocked by the operating system.

What it can and what it can't do

Diskinfo recognizes various floppy formats, e.g. various CP/M, Unix, and Macintosh formats and is able to give further information about DOS-formatted drives (floppies, hard disk, etc.).
It is not able to analyse formats that can only be accessed using special hardware or drivers, e.g. HFS, NTFS, or FAT32. For making this possible, Diskinfo would have to bring along its own drivers - a programming work that lies far beyond my knowledge and possibilities.

Known bugs and disadvantages

• When analyzing 80min/700MB CDs sometimes a wrong number of sectors and therefore a wrong disk size will be determined. This seems to happen mainly with VCDs.
• Recognition of removable media isn't yet completely implemented.
• Test results for CD singles are still missing.
• Printing the results to a file is not possible. Fixed in version 1.72a, 02/19/2002

What's new in version 1.72/1.73?

• 1.73: Added DEC P/OS format.
• 1.72: Added DVD-ROM recognition.
• 1.72: Disk size information is now given in Kb and Mb, too.
• 1.72: New Layout.

Questions, Hints.... ?

Please let me know. Drop me a line. I'm especially glad if you send me

• Hints about bugs, wrong results, crashes.. (please add detailed information about operating system etc.).
• Realistic suggestions how to improve the program.
• Donations consisting of floppies with unusual formats (no, not 8"!! <G>).
• Money! :-D