SNATCH-IT (C) Copyright, 1986-1991 Software Pirates, INC. The COPY II-PC utility program SNATCH-IT is provided to you free of charge by the generous people of Software Pirates, Inc. You are encourage to distribute this program to all of your friends. If you like SNATCH-IT, then you can send a $5.00 donation (or whatever you think its worth) to THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY, in the name of SOFTWARE PIRATES, Inc. Send your donations to: AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY 90 PARK AVENUE NEW YORK, NY 10016 SNATCH-IT provides you with three very powerful advantages over just using COPY II-PC. First (and most important), any disk that can be copied by COPY II-PC, can be converted into a DOS file, where it can be sent via a modem or copied easily using DOS' copy command. Protected disks no longer have to be "cracked" in order to send them over the phone! The second advantage is that you can free up many of your floppy disks dedicated just to a single program. Now those programs can be stored on your hard disk, where they can be ARChived to save space. The third advantage is when the entire program being copied fits into memory at one time, you can repeatably write target disks or files WITHOUT having to re-read the source everytime. The image files created by SNATCH-IT are NOT executable files. These files contain the data necessary to re-construct the diskette to its original form. Converting the diskette to a DOS file allows you to by-pass the normal copy-protection restrictions and manipulate the files in ANY way you desire. The image files MUST be re-constructed back to a diskette before the program(s) can be executed. For your information, SNATCH-IT has been specially designed so that COPY II-PC does NOT get modified at all. You can use COPY II-PC right out of the box. REQUIREMENTS: DOS 2.0 or higher PC, PC-XT, PC-AT, (and some compatibles.) 1 diskette drive 196k bytes of system memory with 140k bytes free. COPY II-PC (designed for versions 1.7 to 4.X. It has only been tested up to 4.01, but there is no reason to believe it won't work on new releases.) ADDITIONAL SUPPORT: SNATCH-IT supports all valid DOS drive types (including RAM disks and Hard disks). SNATCH-IT will use all free memory upto 640K bytes. Pre-Operation setup: To use SNATCH-IT you must do the following: COPY II-PC must be in the default directory of the default drive, so that SNATCH-IT can find it. Also, SNATCH-IT must be located somewhere in your path so that DOS can find it. RUNNING SNATCH-IT: Start your PC and at the DOS prompt enter SNATCHIT. Once SNATCH-IT is loaded into memory it will then load COPY II-PC into memory. Normally, COPY II-PC starts by reading a source diskette and then writing the data to a target diskette. Now, SNATCH-IT intercepts COPY II-PC's request for a source diskette and gives you the opportunity to read a source diskette or the extra option of reading a DOS compatible source file (this option is used when you want to re-contruct a disk). When COPY II-PC is ready to write to a target diskette, SNATCH-IT again intercepts and gives you the opportunity to write to a target diskette or the extra option of writing to a DOS compatible file. At the completion of the write routines, COPY II-PC normally asks if you want to make another copy. A "yes" answer forces the read of a new diskette. SNATCH-IT knows when the write routines are complete and does a special memory verification to calculate the size of the resulting diskette image or file. If the entire diskette image or the entire file fits in memory then SNATCH-IT gives you a set of special options. The special options allow you to return to DOS, return to the read a new source (diskette or file), or return to the write target routines (file or diskette). If the entire diskette image or file is not in memory then SNATCH-IT just asks you if you want to make another copy. A "yes" answer gives you the chance to read a new diskette and also gives you the chance to read another DOS file. FILE STORAGE: SNATCH-IT uses DOS file naming convention for its image files. You will be requested to name the file for the source or target image files. The file name can contain a drive specifier, a path, a filename and an extension. If the drive specifier is not included, SNATCH-IT will use the default drive. If a path is not specified, SNATCH-IT will use the default directory. If a file extension is not specified, SNATCH-IT will add its default extension of CP2 to the filename. From our experiments, we have found that many image files will be larger than the capacity of a double-sided diskette. This happens because the image file not only contains the programs data, it also contains the information necessary for COPY II-PC to re-construct the disk back to its original form. Due to this fact and the fact that some systems only have floppy disk drives, we have allowed SNATCH-IT to break the images files into pieces. SNATCH-IT will utilize all the available space of that diskette and then prompt for a new file name on another diskette. This should provide enough flexibility to for those systems with little disk space. SNATCH-IT can break an image file into a maximum of 10 pieces. SNATCH-IT will mark the order of the files so the image can be reconstructed properly, later. SNATCH-IT also marks the image files so that an illegal file can not be used as a source of a SNATCH-IT image. SNATCH-IT image files can be stored on a diskette or a hard drive. SNATCH-IT image files can be copied from one diskette to another by use of the DOS copy command. SNATCH-IT image files are DOS compatible backups of your important diskettes. SNATCH-IT image files can also be transmitted over a modem or via a LAN or other network. PASSING PARMETERS: SNATCH-IT allows the passing of 1 drive specifier and a single side diskette specifier. The drive specifier passed to SNATCH-IT will be used for both source diskette and target diskette. The drive specifier will not be used for the source file or the target file. The single side specifier will be used only for reading a source diskette. When the /1 option is selected, only the source diskette is affected. A source file in that drive will be treated exactly as is. (if the file is stored on a double sided diskette and the drive is double sided then the file will be read from both sides.) 1. SNATCHIT A: Both source diskette and target diskette will be the A drive. A 2-sided source diskette will be read. 2. SNATCHIT A: B: Same as 1. 3. SNATCHIT B: Both source diskette and target diskette will be the B drive. A 2-sided source diskette will be read. 4. SNATCHIT B: A: Same as 3. 5. SNATCHIT A:/1 Both source diskette and target diskette will be the A drive. A 1-sided source diskette will be read. 6. SNATCHIT A: B:/1 Same as 5. 7. SNATCHIT B:/1 Both source diskette and target diskette will be the B drive. A 1-sided source diskette will be read. 8. SNATCHIT B: A:/1 Same as 7. If a drive specifier is not given, then SNATCH-IT will use the default drive as both the source and target. If the default drive is not a diskette drive, then SNATCH-IT will use the A drive for both the source and target. CAVEATS: SNATCH-IT has not been tested on any systems whose total memory is not a multiple of 64K bytes. If you are using Sidekick, de-install it before starting SNATCH-IT. SNATCH-IT and Sidekick are incompatible. You can de-install Sidekick by getting the selection menu displayed (ALT-CTRL) and then pressing CTRL and HOME and then CTRL and END. When shifting from CTRL-HOME to CTRL-END, do not release the CTRL key. SNATCH-IT works on a PC, XT, and AT. It does not function on a JR. and may not run on some compatibles. Due to the extensive use of interrupts we feel that many compatibles will not work correctly. However, we have not tested any of these, so your system MIGHT work ok. Image file created with COPY II-PC versions prior to version 2.X can NOT re-constructed with later versions of COPY II-PC. Differences in the way COPY II-PC 1.X handles the data, make it incompatible with versions 2.X thru 4.X. SNATCH-IT will identify this condition with an error message and give you a choice whether to proceed or not. We recommend that you do NOT proceed. HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS: Software Pirates provides the following recommendations for making "CP2" files with SNATCH-IT. First, make sure that COPY II-PC can make a copy of the diskette. If COPY II-PC can not make a copy then using SNATCH-IT to create a "CP2" file is a waste of time. Second, determine if the source diskette is single or double sided. If you are in doubt, use COPY II-PC with the /1 option and make a target diskette. If that target is fully functional, then the source diskette must be single sided. Creating a "CP2" file by using the SNATCH-IT /1 switch will result in major space savings in the resultant "CP2" file. Third, try to use the oldest release of COPY II-PC (greater than 2.00) that is available and at your disposal and that can successfully make a copy of your diskette. If a recent version is used to make the "CP2" file and you intend on trading or distributing that file, then you should consider the persons who will be reconstructing the diskette from a "CP2" file. Those persons may not have the latest version of COPY II-PC available to them. Some later versions of COPY II-PC are more versatile and have better algorithms than the older versions. Last, when you create a "CP2" file, use that file to make a target diskette, as a triple check on the above three hints. CHANGE HISTORY: 1.00 - Initial Release 1.01 - Fixed bug that caused SNATCH-IT to sometimes hang the system when loaded. This was only a problem on PCs and XTs, not ATs (which is what this was written on). When returning to DOS after displaying an error message, SNATCH-IT would clear the screen before you have a chance to read the message. This has been fixed. Version 1.00 would not allow you to re-contruct a disk from an image file that was created with a version of COPY II-PC which had a different major version number. For example, if you created an image file using version 2.43, SNATCH-IT would not allow COPY II-PC version 3.X, to re-construct it, even though it MIGHT have worked. Now, SNATCH-IT will display a warning message saying that the re-construction MAY not work and giving you a choice to proceed or not. 1.02 - Fix that prevented an entire image file from being saved when the data in memory ended on an exact segment boundary. Corrected the drive letter designation for the target and source diskette, when the default drive is B. 1.10 - Added support for COPY II-PC 4.X series. 1.11 - Added support for COPY II-PC 5.X series. Several minor bugs fixed.