Availability of bios.h on the net

Surely that file comes with vc++ ?

It comes with Borland's Turbo C.

Yeah..I agree with dbrunton
Also it comes with Watcom C/C++ (bios.h)

You may get source code at(may not useful to you):

(bios.h) ==>

http://minnie.tuhs.org/FreeBSD-srctree/newsrc/i386/include/pc/bios.h.html

(vwin32.h) ==>

http://src.openresources.com/debian/src/libs/HTML/S/v1_1.17.orig%20v1-1.17.orig%20includew%20v%20vwin32.h.html#35

I'll suggest to download Borland C++ Builder (command line tools)from

http://www.borland.com

Thanks

ditto....  (btw: M$.Win does 'like' to permit user to access low level)
On Web, try CodeGuru, ex.:
http://www.codeguru.com/cgi-bin/bbs/wt/showpost.pl?Board=vc&Number=243991
http://www.codeguru.com/cgi-bin/bbs/wt/showpost.pl?Board=vc&Number=244156

> "so that it is unreadable in dos"
Probably all you need do is address the placement of code instructions in the first sectors with your own code. Of course, do not make it bootable. Just remember, if you can write code to access differently, so can someone else, AND, many programs will either treat as virus or bad disk, adding confusion to whoever needs to run it.

(oops, s/b:) ..btw: M$.Win does NOT 'like' to permit user to access low level code

I'll check it @my home PC.

I'll check those files @my home PC.

Here's some descriptors to beware of:
http://yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au/~davmac/doswin/dosdisk.htm

Another thought, depending on needs, many people simply get the hard drive (space/cheap) and linux, which is theoretically free code/OS.

Linux gives you formatting utilities, that are compatibly incompatible with dos/win. What I mean is that the format can end up recognizable to MSDOS in a way that it will more often reject any user attempt to write to disk, claiming there is something there, dunno what, some unknown OS, etc. So it (1) will not read, (2) will not write, (3) preserve your work, (4) be readable in an alternative shareable format.

Linux, btw, has capability to write back to dos diskette or fat16 HD, usually (depends on who's version you get), with commands very similar to dos, like dir and copy. Thus when in linux environment, you can move real dos files off the dos part of the machine, or back to dos machine again, without having to do any low-level programming. When in the linux formatted part, Dos will not read, but it'll know something is there so you can better avoid uninformed deletions.

For exercising an assembler to use bios, try on interrupt 13:
Function 05 format cylinder
Function 09 Adapt to foreign drives

Note, Windows environment does not want to permit you to access/run low-level I/O. It wants to maintain readability.

For protecting data, consider encrypting files, then decrypting. A good ZIP package may do that efficiently enough for your purpose.

With the time, to go on the cheap:
http://www.freesoftware.com/

Go here for 90% of the assembler code:
https://www.experts-exchange.com/jsp/qShow.jsp?ta=progsoftgen&qid=20129928
Note: you need not read disk, but should initialize buffer to zero

No comment has been added lately, so it's time to clean up this TA.
I will leave a recommendation in the Cleanup topic area that this question is:
 - PAQ'd and pts removed
Please leave any comments here within the
next seven days.

PLEASE DO NOT ACCEPT THIS COMMENT AS AN ANSWER !

Nic;o)