billk@elric.UUCP (William A. Karns) (09/09/88)
We've been experiencing a problem around here with a mysterious interaction between serial ports and the floppy drive. This problem seems to be confined to Unisys PC/microITs equipped with 2 serial ports, 1 floppy drive and 1 hard drive (which is not to say that changing the value on one of these parameters alleviates the problem :-). We generally run MSDOS 3.2 around here, but I wouldn't swear the problem is confined to this version. The problem is this: After an unknown sequence of events involving access of the serial port (#1 or #2 or both), the floppy drive is rendered inaccessible, i.e., it can be neither read or written. One curious phenomenon occurs: if a file is written to the hard disk from Framework II, the floppy drive is then available. This does NOT occur if a file is written to the hard disk using other programs we have tried (BRIEF, edlin, . . .) We've speculated that DMA is involved, and spent a small amount of time writing a small 'c' program to check the status of the floppy controller, and then reset it, but our efforts have been to no avail. The BIOS system call to check the status indicates the drive is ready when it is obviously not! Any assistance would be mucho appreciatedo. -- Bill Karns "Marriage is a means, not an end." UNISYS CSD Technology Transfer (612-681-6075) billk@elric.UUCP ..!uunet!rosevax!elric!billk
berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu (09/17/88)
Is it possible that you've got one of your serial ports strapped to
use IRQ 5? That's used by the hard disk in an XT, and would cause
a conflict.
Mike Berger
Department of Statistics
Science, Technology, and Society
University of Illinois
berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu
{ihnp4 | convex | pur-ee}!uiucuxc!clio!bergerjmj@mhuxu.UUCP (J. M. Johnson) (09/26/88)
In article <574@elric.UUCP>, billk@elric.UUCP (William A. Karns) writes: > We've been experiencing a problem around here with a mysterious interaction > between serial ports and the floppy drive. This problem seems to be confined > to Unisys PC/microITs equipped with 2 serial ports, 1 floppy drive and 1 > hard drive (which is not to say that changing the value on one of these > parameters alleviates the problem :-). We generally run MSDOS 3.2 around > here, but I wouldn't swear the problem is confined to this version. > Your problem could be that you have too many files open at the time that you are trying to write to the disk. I have run into this problem while using a ram disk to save a file while downloading. When the download was finished I escaped to DOS (Alt-F4, Procomm) to save the file to disk and I couldn't. After a few moments of panic, I discovered that I had a 'too many files open' error which would not let me save to the floppy. I had to 'exit' back into Procomm and 'Alt-X' (quit). This closed files that were opened by Procomm and permitted me to save the file to the floppy. If I could afford to purchase a hard disk I probably would not have this problem. But, Uncle Sam wants his student loans paid back. -- :-{) Remember, no matter where you go, there you are! (Pig Killer) (}-: J. M. Johnson, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Reading, PA ...!att!mhuxu!jmj