The B: drive of my Philips 8280 isn't working anymore, but I need to copy files between 2 disks. I know you can do a copy from B: to A: if you've got only one disk drive, and at a certain moment you're asked to switch disks if I remember correctly. Can you temporarily deactivate the malfunctioning drive B and do the same (copy from/to the A: drive)?
The B: drive of my Philips 8280 isn't working anymore, but I need to copy files between 2 disks. I know you can do a copy from B: to A: if you've got only one disk drive, and at a certain moment you're asked to switch disks if I remember correctly. Can you temporarily deactivate the malfunctioning drive B and do the same (copy from/to the A: drive)?
Starting your computer holding CTRL key should do the trick
Starting your computer holding CTRL key should do the trick
Nope... This will disable also the virtual drive B:
Disconnecting the failed drive is therefore better. How ever I can't really recommend copying files with this method anyway... Yes, in theory it can be done, but after all that "Insert disk to drive A:", "Insert disk to drive B:","Insert disk to drive A:", "Insert disk to drive B:","Insert disk to drive A:", "Insert disk to drive B:"... You will regret that you ever started... Maybe one file is bearable, but multiple files? Definitely no! I do not know how many bytes it copies at each disk swap, but it is not very big block and FAT entry reads/writes require their own disk swaps.
On DOS2 there is the RAM disk built in, but it does not help much unless you have some external memory mapper as well... (Though if you would have DOS2 then you likely would have some card reader/HDD as well) I remember I used to have some boot disk for DOS1 as well that added RAM disk as drive C: back in the days I didn't have HDD yet. It worked well for these kind of needs, but IIRC I had anyway 256KB of RAM.
If possible, it is not bad idea to use PC/Mac/Amiga or similar for these kinds of needs. There exists good tools to copy whole disk at a time that use VRAM and all, but multiple individual files is honestly quite a tough nut to crack with not expanded 8280 when only one drive is working.
