jjoshua@topaz.rutgers.edu (Jon Joshua) (09/30/89)
I have an older AT that I just put a 1.44M disk drive in to. To my
surprise, the machine does not support this drive type. Does anyone
have a device driver that could help me. It would definitely be a lot
easier and cheaper than replacing the bios.
JOn.
--
/\ ? ________________
jjoshua@topaz.rutgers.edu \ ____ __ fgu |.signature under|
Anything is possible... \ | | / | orywlut- | construction |
========== gfgsdfsdfsd |________________|
_____________________________OO_____O___hfdhksjdhfksjdfs_______||__________||__press@venice.SEDD.TRW.COM (Barry Press) (10/02/89)
Newer versions of DOS (3.3?) have a thing called DRIVER.SYS. Have you tried that?
hutch%citron.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (David Hutchens) (10/02/89)
From article <27@venice.SEDD.TRW.COM>, by press@venice.SEDD.TRW.COM (Barry Press): > Newer versions of DOS (3.3?) have a thing called DRIVER.SYS. Have you > tried that? Close, but no cigar. DRIVER.SYS has the annoying habit of calling the BIOS to do the actual I/O. The _Older_ PC/AT, which I believe the requester said he had, has a screwed up BIOS that IGNORES the information passed by DRIVER.SYS. (If he does have a newer one, this solution should work). I am one of the "lucky" ones that have a screwed up BIOS, so for me if not the original poster... Does anyone have a device driver that does not use the BIOS at all? David Hutchens hutch@hubcap.clemson.edu ...gatech!hubcap!hutch
eclarke@ironside.uucp (10/03/89)
In article <27@venice.SEDD.TRW.COM> press@venice.sedd.trw.com (Barry Press) writes: >Newer versions of DOS (3.3?) have a thing called DRIVER.SYS. Have you >tried that? Several months ago I tried to install some 3.5" 1.44M drives into a computer that did not have bios support for the drives. Actually it was four different brands of computers. They included an Epson, an Everex system 1800 (thats their OEM line), an HP Vectra (old model), and a Wyse PC. The first drives were Toshiba drives. PLEASE NOTE THAT THESE FOLLOWING COMMENTS ARE IN THE CONTEXT OF AN INDEPENDENT CONSULTING FIRM THAT I RAN ***BEFORE*** I WENT TO WORK FOR IBM. These comments are in now way they opinions of IBM or IBM AWD Development! Of the four Toshiba drives I bought three of them were defective. I sent almost six months trying to return the drives to my distributor. My distributor, who will remain nameless, told me that Toshiba required that the drives be returned directly to Toshiba. Toshiba would then tell me that the drives had to be returned to my distributor. I talked with most of the west coast sales and service offices for Toshiba. I finally ended up talking with Frank Hatch, the west coast vp of sales. The story continued that Toshiba wanted the drives returned to my distributor. The distributor would keep saying that Frank Hatch was telling them that the drives had to be returned directly to Toshiba. Anyway that part was finally solved when I had a $30K order holding for a couple hundred dollars worth of drives. The distributor finally just ate the price of the drives. They didn't even ask for them back at that point. Back to the original comments. All of the above computers could handle 3.5" drives at 720K w/o any problems. None of them could handle them at 1.44M. The first solution was to try a device driver that came with the Toshiba drives. It worked sometimes in the Wyse. It never worked in any of the other machines. The Wyse also had the problem of being on a Novell network. That didn't help. The Epson is a PC class (maybe XT) of machine. Its floppy controller cannot handle the 18 sectors per track required to do 1.44M. That one could have a new floppy controller to let it work at 1.44M. The owner decided that they didn't want the new controller and settled for 720K. That by the way is the Toshiba drive that never failed. The HP wouldn't work well at 1.44M even with the driver. There were several incompatibility problems. The owner decided this was a good point to upgrade the computer. It was replaced with an Everex system 1800 (with ROM support for 1.44M drives). The 3.5" 1.44M drive worked just fine then. The drive by this time was a Teac. The other Everex (w/o ROM support for 1.44M drives) and the Wyse had their ROMs upgraded to ones that supported the 1.44M drives. That cost about $75 - $100. They both worked flawlessly with the Teac drives then. About DRIVER.SYS it doesn't work right if you don't have ROM support fot the drive. The opinions expressed in this article are mine and in no way reflect the opinions of IBM or IBM AWD Development. Eric S. Clarke UUCP: uunet!ibmsupt!eclarke 1510 Page Mill Road COM: 415-855-4458 Palo Alto, CA 94304 TIE: 465-4458