iiit-sh@cybaswan.UUCP (Steve Hosgood) (05/25/89)
In article <550@megatek.UUCP> hollen@eta.megatek.uucp (Dion Hollenbeck) writes: >From article <3649@penet.UUCP>, by thomas@penet.UUCP (Thomas Aschan): >> Does anybody have experience >> with reading & writing 720 kB 5 1/4" >> floppies? >> >Yes, I have Shugart 565 5 1/4" drives which are 720kb. I use them both >as standard floppies and also with Fastback for backup purposes. >I have needed to put "DRIVPARM /d:2 /h:2 /t:80" (check DOS manual for >exact syntax since I am at work, not at home where the drives are) in >my config.sys... I've done this with Mitsubishi drives, and as you say, it works fine on an XT... >....or if on an AT, use setup and tell >it that they are 3 1/2" 720kb drives. Unless you have some strange >format, the 720kb drives are 2 heads, 80 tracks, 9 sectors per track, >exactly the same as the 3 1/2" drives currently popular. > PROBLEM: I tried to do this with my AT at work, but found that there's some strange incompatibility between the drives (Mitsubishi) and the connector from the AT's floppy controller. It *seems* (after a lot of checking) that the AT controller has two drive selects and two motor-on lines in the ribbon cable (or something like that) whereas my drive expects something a bit different. Again, my data's at home so I can't give full details. >One caveat, DRIVPARM does not work on DOS 3.3, but will work on 3.2. >I spent lots of time figuring this one out, and I will never upgrade to >3.3 because of it. I seem to remember something posted recently about how to fix that problem. Maybe some kind soul will repost the solution. It was really baroque, like inserting several control-A characters in the DRIVPARM line or something..! -----------------------------------------------+------------------------------ Steve Hosgood BSc, | Phone (+44) 792 295213 Image Processing and Systems Engineer, | Fax (+44) 792 295532 Institute for Industrial Information Techology,| Telex 48149 Innovation Centre, University of Wales, +------+ JANET: iiit-sh@uk.ac.swan.pyr Swansea SA2 8PP | UUCP: ..!ukc!cybaswan.UUCP!iiit-sh ----------------------------------------+------------------------------------- My views are not necessarily those of my employers!