newsgst@sequoia.execu.com (Net News) (01/31/91)
Maybe not everything you wanted to know, but hey, it's free! A compilation of responses from the net and personal experience. With thanks to: <jcburt@cs.wm.edu> <880126b@AcadiaU.CA> <doug.marshall@SanDiego.NCR.COM> and a few others whose address is rather munged DOS/CONTROLLER: First of all, you _have_ to be running DOS 3.3 or higher. Secondly, you need a high-density (HD) floppy disk controller (FDC). It is very unlikely that an XT came with an HD FDC, so you need to go out and buy a new one. The HD, or sometimes Super Floppy controller, is needed to support 3.5" drives. I am extrapolating a bit here, but: It is possible to buy a controller with its own BIOS. This is the route I suggest. In this case, you do _not_ need a BIOS on your motherboard that supports 3.5" drives. The controller I bought is like this. What I got to work with my clone is listed at the end. If your controller depends on the motherboard BIOS then you may need to replace your BIOS unless you have bought your XT recently. The responses I have received indicate that BIOS is somewhat connected to your motherboard and you should call Phoenix, Dtk, etc. to see if their new chip is compatible with your motherboard. It should be, but you may want to check first. There was another recommendation that the controller card should support 500Kb/sec transfers. Old XT controllers are slower. If you get a controller without its own BIOS, and have an old BIOS on the motherboard then you can get the system to think you have a 720k 3.5" but this is an ugly kludge, so don't do it! :) What you need to do in your config.sys is put in either: DRIVPARM=/D:1 /F:2 or Device=Driver.Sys This will essentially patch your BIOS to think it has a 720k drive(s?). I have not tried the above, but it sounds reasonable. My hardware was bought at CompuAdd, whom I call CompuDork for various blunders they have done throughout time, but really, they are pretty good and have 1-800 telephone technical support. It was their technical support that finally helped me out. My controller goes by the model number PII-151B or Mini/Micro FDC and was $40-50 dollars over a year ago. The drive is a standard Mitsumi 3.5" 1.44MB in a 5.25" enclosure. My particular problem centered around, of all things, instructions that were printed wrong. (truly!) I had the card set up right. The drive instructions indicated that if it was an XT machine to set the drive to XT. Well, in the case of my card, it was acting like an AT card and using its own BIOS, so all I needed to do was set the jumper on the drive to AT and there has been no problem. A final note, I do not know this for sure, but I think that you should, in the beginning, set the 3.5 drive as the second drive (B) and use a 5.25 for the A drive. I am not sure if you can boot off the 3.5, especially if you are using the controller's BIOS and your motherboard doesn't support it. This may all be wrong. Fair warning. I hope that helped, and I will try to answer any questions, corrections are ok, but I don't have too much time for this now that the semester is underway. jj jjoy@lucy.wellesley.edu newsgst@execu.com
alexank@prism.cs.orst.edu (Kelly Alexander) (03/02/91)
In article <31458@sequoia.execu.com> newsgst@sequoia.execu.com (Net News) writes: >Maybe not everything you wanted to know, but hey, it's free! > > If you get a controller without its own BIOS, and have an old >BIOS on the motherboard then you can get the system to think you have >a 720k 3.5" but this is an ugly kludge, so don't do it! :) What you >need to do in your config.sys is put in either: > >DRIVPARM=/D:1 /F:2 > > or > >Device=Driver.Sys > >This will essentially patch your BIOS to think it has a 720k drive(s?). >I have not tried the above, but it sounds reasonable. > I've got an XT Clone with a BIOS dated 2/5/81 with a 720k 3.5" hooked to an equally outdated FDC designed for 360k 5.25" and I've managed to fake it into thinking 'D' drive is a 720k for formating purposes and read/write, and 'B' as a 720k for reading/writing purposes by adding to the config.sys: DEVICE= C:\DRIVER.SYS /D:1 /F:2 This actually works most of the time, but some applications will not acknoledge the 'D' drive (WordStar 4.0 for one) so you have to run it as 'B' and hope it works. Mine does most of the time, but sometimes you have to reboot and start again....... :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | Kelly Alexander | "When you look at the world, just remember that| | alexank@prism.cs.orst.edu | some people just aren't built on a whole lot | | OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY | of points......." -D. White | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | Unoffical P/C Industries Research and Development Departmental Slogan: | | | | You never want to ask how, just HOW MUCH? | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------