readdm@walt.cc.utexas.edu (David M. Read) (08/19/89)
I have recently acquired a problem with my floppy drives, and was wondering if
anyone can suggest any do-it-yourself type fixes.
The problem is this: neither drive will format disks; I always get a "system
reserve are bad" message, and the format aborts. This happens on both drives,
with any disk (even new). The wierd part is that if I Copy2PC a previously
formatted disk onto a target and then erase the files, everything is ok.
Since both drives started doing this simultaneously, I suspect the problem lies
in the floppy controller, but I'm not sure. Could this be just an alignment
problem?
The machine is a 1984 Leading Edge PC (old, yes. reliable up till now, yes.)
Does anybody have any ideas? If all else fails, I'll take it to a repair
shop, but us poor starving physics grads are known not for high cash flow but
high ability to try anything.
Thanks in advance.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
David M. Read best -=> readdm@snowwhite.cc.utexas.edu
all-else-fails -=> read@physics.utexas.edu
"...[he's] stupid and he's ignorant but he's got guts...and guts is enough!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------mdfreed@ziebmef.mef.org (Mark Freedman) (08/25/89)
(both floppy drives suddenly become unable to format disks)
it IS possible that botn drives have worn out (heads, alignment, whatever)
at the same instant, but .....
I once had a similar experience. After buying a box of Maxell disks (back when they cost $50 / box), a head cleaning kit, taking the system apart and
watching the heads step through the format without any apparent problem, I
tried formatting with the FORMAT program on the original release disk, rather
than a copied work disk.
This worked perfectly. I then copied FORMAT to the work disk, and formatted
successfully using the copy.
I have no idea how FORMAT became corrupt, but that's what appeared to have
happened (I believe that it happened several more times over the years, but
that was a while ago). If I recall correctly, it was PC-DOS 2.x, so it may
have had something to do with that, or with JFORMAT / QDRIVE (Tall Tree
Systems software to format / access different disk formats).nigel@nmtsun.nmt.edu (Nigel Sharples) (10/24/89)
A friend recently bought a 386SX machine - it refuses to format a disk without marking off bad sectors (3.5" 1.44 meg drive). I utilised its BIOS's 'format disk' function (AMI BIOS) which only went to cylinder 39 before quiting and saying everything was fine. Incidently, the BIOS does know that the drive is a 1.44 meg. The BIOS also has a sequential read/write test which it performed, only to fail with a checksum error at cylinder 73. Is the problem with the drive, BIOS, or both (or controller?....) Any comments would be much appreciated! Thanks in advance. Nigel -- "Many's the night I've dreamed of cheese, toasted mostly."