rh0i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Richard Warren Harris) (06/02/91)
I want to ammend what I wrote a few days ago.... > I have a 3.5 inch high density drive that thinks it formats out to 1.2 > Mb instead of 1.44. Funny thing is, these disks can be read and > written to by other PCs with HD drives (as a 1.2 Mb disk), but my > drive will not read anything except what it formats itself. > Inconvenient. > > I'm running a 286 AT clone which already has a 5.25 inch 1.2 Mb drive, > and DOS 3.3. The 5.25 is the a: drive, and this confused 3.5 is the > b:. I ran the setup utility without any problems when I hooked up the > drive, so theoretically at least the machine knows that it's a 1.44 Mb > drive. Most of the hardware on this thing is from '87 or so. Most of > the software is recent, however. Correction: Most of the hardware is from '85 or '86. The ROM BIOS is dated Nov, 1986. > I called the "excellent trained technical staff" of the company I > bought the drive from, and the guy I talked to said that "1.2 is > pretty close to 1.44" and the reason I couldn't read any other disks > in was because they were *all* bad. When I asked him if that didn't > seem like an unlikely explanation he replied "I've seen it happen." > > Right. > > I'm no PC hardware expert (I got this thing used about 6 weeks ago), > but I have some theories: > > 1. The DOS I got with the machine is not *really* 3.3. It says it's > 3.3, but when I try to format a disk as 720K.... > > C>format b: /n:9 /t:80 > > Insert new disk in {blah, blah blah...} > > <enter> > > Parameters not supported. > > I don't know what this means. Is this a problem with the drive, > DOS, or the disk? This is the same DOS that is running without incedent on a PS/2. I am basically ruling out this possibility, or at least lowering it's probability. I'll be trying another DOS in a day or two. > 2. The CMOS isn't really configured, it just thinks that it is. I > don't know how it works or anything like that, so excuse my ignorance > if this is totally off-base. I have a setup utility, but how do I > know that the data stored is the same that the setup utility thinks?. > Maybe the utility gives me the option of making a disk 360K, 1.2 Mb, > 720K, or 1.44Mb, but the computer itself is totally clueless about > what a 1.44 drive is, and so treats it like a 1.2 Mb drive (???????) The ROM BIOS, as I said, is dated 1986. It says it supports 1.44 Mb drives. I still don't believe it. Does anybody know what kind of BIOS a FOUNTAIN 286 clone uses? > 3. The controller card for the drives can't handle a 1.44 Mb drive. Tried out a new controller. No different. Still formats to 1.2 Mb. Boy did I scream.... > Any clue as to what's happening would be greatly appreciated. If you > could, please cc a copy to my account. So far, through independant testing, we have eliminated: 1. The Disks 2. The Drive 3. The Controller Card The only thing left, as far as I know, is: 4. The ROM BIOS. Which, again, gives a 1.44 Mb drive as an option when you set up the machine. Could it be that my '86 BIOS is only joking about knowing what a 1.44 Mb floppy is??!! ^^^^^^ Thanks, - Rick (rh0i@andrew.cmu.edu <<or>> cuddles@cs.cmu.edu) ------------------------------------------------------------------ Rick Harris | Information & Decision Systems with Computer Science ------------------------------------------------------------------ Social & Decision Sciences Department | Carnegie Mellon ------------------------------------------------------------------ Jello is a dish best served cold.....