luse@cod.UUCP (Stephen A. Luse) (06/08/87)
I've got an IDS (Intellgent Data Systems) AT clone on which I recently installed MS-DOS 3.2. Every DOS function appears to be working fine *except* when formatting a floppy disk. Format gives the standard "Head.. Cylinder..." info, but can't make it past the first cylinder without an "invalid media" error. Multiple trys will eventually get me a formatted disk (which Norton's DiskTest says is fine). The drive controller was first suspect, but has been tested in other machines with no problems. I would suspect the floppy drives themselves, but *both* would be at fault, and the system reads the disks fine. Does anyone have any advise? Is there something in the clone ROM Bios that may be causing trouble with MS-DOS 3.2? ---------------------------------------------------------------- Steph Luse luse@nosc.mil NOSC San Diego "The difference between ignorance and stupidity is that ignorance can be cured" -anonymous (or maybe it was me on a Caffine binge). ----------------------------------------------------------------
leonard@percival.UUCP (06/10/87)
I've encountered problems formatting floppies (esp 1.2 meg) on a couple of AT clones at work. Problems occur with both MSDOS 3.1 & PC-DOS 3.1. I can now format 360k floppies after reducing the number of buffers in CONFIG.SYS from 40 to 36. (it works, but _why_?!) I still couldn't format 1.2 meg disks until I happened to try the "format a disk" option from our user menu program. After much investigation I found a "solution". Go into BASIC and type SHELL "FORMAT A:" Obviously, there is something broken in the environment, but what? Another AT (clone) will format ok, but after _completing_ the format gives a "Track 0 bad, disk unusable" error. The disks *are* usable, they pass CHKDSK, Norton''s DT, and Mace Utilities Diagnose. I hope all this will help some guru track down the source of this problem. -- Leonard Erickson ...!tektronix!reed!percival!leonard CIS: [70465,203] ...!tektronix!reed!percival!!bucket!leonard "I used to be a hacker. Now I'm a 'microcomputer specialist'. You know... I'd rather be a hacker."
ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu.UUCP (06/13/87)
In article <691@percival.UUCP> leonard@percival.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) writes: >I've encountered problems formatting floppies (esp 1.2 meg) on a couple >of AT clones at work. Problems occur with both MSDOS 3.1 & PC-DOS 3.1. > >I can now format 360k floppies after reducing the number of buffers in >CONFIG.SYS from 40 to 36. (it works, but _why_?!) > >I still couldn't format 1.2 meg disks until I happened to try the >"format a disk" option from our user menu program. After much investigation >I found a "solution". Go into BASIC and type SHELL "FORMAT A:" ... >Another AT (clone) will format ok, but after _completing_ the format >gives a "Track 0 bad, disk unusable" error. The disks *are* usable, >they pass CHKDSK, Norton''s DT, and Mace Utilities Diagnose. >-- >Leonard Erickson ...!tektronix!reed!percival!leonard >CIS: [70465,203] ...!tektronix!reed!percival!!bucket!leonard Your problems are due to a major omission in *all* versions of FORMAT. FORMAT, of necessity, uses several buffers for writing to the disk (FAT's, empty directory sectors, etc). Unfortunately, *FORMAT does not check to see whether its buffers cross a 64K boundary*!!! Since the DMA chip handles only 16-bit addresses on its own, an auxiliary register is used to hold the high bits of the address. Thus, an entire read or write operation must take place within an address block which has the same high bits. If the buffer you tell the ROM BIOS to use crosses a 64K boundary, the ROM will return an error. It is this error return that prompts FORMAT to give its own error message. There is only one solution--change the amount of memory used by DOS and any TSR's until the buffers move off of the 64K boundary. Changing the number of buffers will work, as will removing (or *adding*) a resident program. -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ARPA: RALF@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU USnail: Ralf Brown AT&T: (412) 268-3053 (school) Computer Science Department Carnegie-Mellon University DISCLAIMER? Who ever said I claimed anything? Pittsburgh, PA 15213 "I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them..." -- Isaac Asimov
lane@dalcs.UUCP (06/15/87)
In article <691@percival.UUCP> leonard@percival.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) writes: >I've encountered problems formatting floppies (esp 1.2 meg) on a couple >of AT clones ... with both MSDOS 3.1 & PC-DOS 3.1. >I can format 360k floppies after reducing the number of buffers in >CONFIG.SYS from 40 to 36. (it works, but _why_?!) >I still couldn't format 1.2 meg disks... >I found a "solution". Go into BASIC and type SHELL "FORMAT A:" >I hope all this will help some guru track down the source of this problem. In article <38@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu> ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Ralf Brown) writes: >Your problems are due to a major omission in *all* versions of FORMAT. FORMAT, >of necessity, uses several buffers for writing to the disk. Unfortunately, >FORMAT does not check to see whether its buffers cross a 64K boundary!!! >Since the DMA chip handles only 16-bit addresses on its own ... If the buffer >you tell the ROM BIOS to use crosses a 64K boundary, the ROM will return an >error. It is this error that prompts FORMAT to give its own error message. > >There is only one solution--change the amount of memory used by DOS and any >TSR's until the buffers move off of the 64K boundary. Changing the number >of buffers will work, as will removing (or *adding*) a resident program. I read the above with great interest as I have had problems formatting HD disks for 1.2 Meg on my AT clone since moving to DOS 3.2. Several versions of DOS 3.1 had worked OK but I bought 3.2 from Microsoft directly and this bug came with it. With "format a:", I get: Head 0, cylinder 0 Head 1, cylinder 0 Parameters not compatible Invalid media or track 0 bad - disk unusable This is with proper HD diskettes and my SETUP has A: a high-capacity drive. I can read and write 1.2 Meg disks no probs but DISKCOPY from a 1.2M disk to an unformatted disk bombs, saying the disk types are incompatible. I can format 360K disks with "format a:/4" no problem. I'm using Phoenix 80286 BIOS ver 3.01. The problem occurs with my machine at 6MHz or 10. My floppy drive is a Panasonic JU-475-2. I think I may have been told that Compaq 3.2 works on the same clone but I'm not sure about that. Based on the above, I tried removing all TRS's and changing my buffers= in config.sys to the entire range from 19 to 40 and also 60, 80 and 99, diligently rebooting each time and trying "format a:" from DOS and GW- BASIC each time. No joy. I would REALLY appreciate it if some "guru" would come up with a solution to this one for me as it's a real sore thumb. -- John Wright ////////////////// Phone: 902-424-3805 or 902-424-6527 Post: c/o Dr Pat Lane, Biology Dept, Dalhousie U, Halifax N.S., CANADA B3H-4H8 Ean/Bitnet: lane@cs.dal.cdn Arpa: lane%cs.dal.cdb%ubc.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa Uucp:{seismo,watmath,utai,garfield}!dalcs!lane Csnet:lane%cs.dal.cdn@ubc.csnet