svaepiz@eva.slu.se (07/25/90)
Hi, I a have friend that is trying to equippe a number of 4-5 years old IBM AT-2's with 3.5 inch floppy drives, but he can't get it to work properly. Hardware installation os OK, but he can't format HD diskettes to 1.44 MB only to 740 kB. The machines are running PC-DOS 3.30. He says that there's apparently a limitation in the BIOS of these machines. Does anyone have a clue on how to get around this problem? Thanks in advance, Ulf Emanuelson Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
doerschu@rex.cs.tulane.edu (Dave Doerschuk) (07/26/90)
In article <7204.26ada3d3@eva.slu.se> svaepiz@eva.slu.se writes: >Hi, >I a have friend that is trying to equippe a number of 4-5 years old IBM AT-2's >with 3.5 inch floppy drives, but he can't get it to work properly. Hardware >installation os OK, but he can't format HD diskettes to 1.44 MB only to 740 kB. >The machines are running PC-DOS 3.30. He says that there's apparently a >limitation in the BIOS of these machines. Does anyone have a clue on how to >get around this problem? > >Thanks in advance, >Ulf Emanuelson >Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Ulf, Normally I would have emailed you, but this subject does come up from time to time and I thought I'd post. Inclusion in the FAQ list may be appropriate? Basic explaination: a german author has written a wonderful program that allows those of us with early AT's to read and write normally to a 1.44 Meg diskette drive. The program does far more than that, it allows for many different formats to be used, but the primary demand seems to be for the 1.44 Meg compatibility on old AT's. It is NOT necessary to change your bios to make this program work. The documentation is extensive, and well worth reading. However, the program can do so many things that it is a bit difficult to determine how to get it to do just the 1.44 Meg conversion on old AT's. I strongly recommend you read the included manual carefully. For those of you experience difficulty, I have included at the end of this posting an email message I recently sent to a man describing how to set up the program on an old AT to make it format, read, and write to 1.44 Meg 3.5" diskettes. I hope you find this information useful. Here is the description on where to ftp the file from: SITES: simtel20.arpa in directory: PD1:<MSDOS.DSKUTL> or: wuarchive.wustl.edu in directory: mirrors/msdos/dskutl FILE: FDFORM15.ZIP DESCRIPTION: Format floppies for greater density/storage SIZE: 83790 bytes DATE: 90/04/18 Here is the reply I sent to the man who was experiencing difficulties setting up the program on an old AT: >I can certainly sympathize with your problems in reading the documentation, >it is not always clear. I've reread the manual hoping to be able to >pinpoint your problem, and I think I can help you get it going. > >First, a couple of caveats: > >1. I'm using an original IBM AT running at 6Mhz with a bios dated > January 10, 1984. I use PC-DOS version 3.3. I have never updated > my bios; it came with the machine. If you're using a different > bios or DOS, conceivably this may be part of the problem, but > read on. :-) > >2. The author specifically mentions problems with DTK bioses and also > with DOS version 3.2. If you've got either of these, you may > want to read the manual in depth...its confusing on these points. > >OK, here's how I've got it running: > >1. In my autoexec.bat I've got a 1-liner that reads: FDREAD > This installs a little program that makes the darn thing > work right on reads and writes. I believe you MUST have > this, in spite of the big chart on the 3rd page of the > manual that says the -F144 option on a 1.44 Meg Disk Drive > does NOT require FDREAD. The author is german, and something > may have gotten lost in the translation. I think he meant > that for a machine that has a 1.44 Meg Disk Drive and a BIOS > that UNDERSTOOD that drive, you don't need to install FDREAD. > I absolutely cannot make the drive work without first installing > FDREAD. Note that there is another method of installing FDREAD, > by putting DEVICE=[PATH]FDREAD.EXE into your config.sys file. > I've never tried this, although the author claims it saves about > 50 bytes of main memory space. > >2. I have read all his information on a FDFORMAT.CFG configuration > file, and I simply can't get it to work on my machine. Don't > know why. I've got my 1.44 Meg Disk Drive connected as physical > drive B: on my machine, and when I want to format a 1.44 Meg > Diskette, I enter the following command: > FDFORMAT B: -F144 > >3. I have no DRIVPARM line at all in my config.sys. The FDFORMAT > program doesn't seem to need one. I'd recommend you delete > the one in your config.sys. > >4. Since you too have an ancient AT, you probably have the hardware > diagnostics disk that you use to tell the machine what equipment > you have installed. I have my physical drive B: (the 1.44 Meg > diskette) configured as a 1.2 Meg 5.25" disk drive. I do not > know if this is necessary, but it seems to work correctly. Obviously, > you cannot configure it as a 1.44 Meg disk drive...if you could, > you wouldn't have this darn problem in the first place! > >5. To recap, here's what I think you need to do to get it running: > A. Use the hardware diagnostics disk to set your 1.44 Meg drive > to the 1.2 Meg type. > B. Delete the DRIVPARM line in your config.sys file > C. Add a line in your autoexec.bat file saying: FDREAD > (obviously, include a path if the FDREAD program isn't in > a directory already on your system PATH statement.) > D. Reboot your machine. > E. Put a diskette into your 1.44 Meg drive, and enter: > FDFORMAT A: -144 > if the 1.44 Meg disk drive is physical drive A:, or: > FDFORMAT B: -144 > if the 1.44 Meg disk drive is physical drive B:. > F. You should now have a formatted, 1.44 Meg disk in your drive. > Read and write (i.e. copy, edit, delete, etc.) normally to > the disk, treating it as a normal drive. The FDREAD program > will take care of the fact that your bios doesn't really > understand the new diskette size. I hope this helps. Dave Doerschuk doerschu@rex.cs.tulane.edu