Anyone use ZIP drives on 5160s?

[offensive_Jerk]

EXTREME UPDATE:

The computer has been restored and can now boot.
I just received palmzip.sys in my email. Still have to transfer it over.
Hooked the zip up to LPT2 and seems to work better.

 

[strollin]

To get around the slow calc of used/free space when using Palmzip, I use a little PC Mag util called ddir.com to do a dir listing. It gives a 2 column directory listing without the free space so it's very quick. If I want to know the used/free space then I can always use the dir command.

I tried to find it on the web to link to it. I can find references but not the actual program to download. There is also a ddir.exe util that isn't the same thing.

 

[Chromedome45]

Here you go the complete zip file with source etc. (DDIR) that is. :D

Here is the link to a bunch of PCMAG files. Click on it and select open from Winzip it will show contents. Save it then if you like it.

http://www.filewatcher.com/b/ftp/ft...el-for-Ms-dos-1994-disk2/DISC2/PCMAG.3.3.html

 

[Lord Moz]

I seem to be getting issues reading 360k floppys when I transfer them to my 486 computer with a 1.2mb drive, copy the files, and then put them back in my XT. Many times my 5150 and 5160 cannot read the disks after that, or struggle with them. I format the disk on my XT, then put it in the 486. The 486 detects that its 360k. I copy the files fine, but when I put the disk back into my IBMs, they always have issues reading the data.

Also, it would be nice to copy bigger files.

Are you at any time writing to the 5.25 disks in the 1.2mb drive?
That is well known to cause big problems with 5.25 disks. 360KB drives have 40 tracks, while 1.2mb drives use 80. The heads in the 1.2MB drive are 1/2 the size as those in the 360KB drive, so when the 1.2mb drive writes any data to the disk, the part of the disk that is "written" (i.e. physically magnetically charged, not logical space used), is 1/2 the size as what the 360KB drive is expecting.

The problems occur in situations as you describe, where the data is created in a 360KB drive and updated/modified in a 1.2MB drive and returned to a 360KB drive. The original data written by the 360KB drive is 2x the size/width as the "new" data that the 1.2MB drive wrote "over" it. So the physical disk has the old data in the same place logically as the new data, but the new data is written with 1/2 the effective charge as the old stuff, and the heads in the 360KB drive cannot reliably read data in this state.

I hope that makes sense. For the least amount of problems, it is best to avoid writing to 360KB disks in 1.2MB drives, put some tape over the write enable/protect notch to be sure dos isn't silently updating the FAT while you are reading/copying your data off the disk. To move data back to the 360KB disk format it in a 1.2MB drive and copy the data over to the new, blank disc. The 360KB drive generally has no problems reading it, because the weaker/smaller data written by the 1.2MB drive does not have any larger/stronger 360KB data overriding it in the sector.

Lots of fun eh?

__
Trevor

 

[per]

I hope that makes sense. For the least amount of problems, it is best to avoid writing to 360KB disks in 1.2MB drives, put some tape over the write enable/protect notch to be sure dos isn't silently updating the FAT while you are reading/copying your data off the disk. To move data back to the 360KB disk format it in a 1.2MB drive and copy the data over to the new, blank disc. The 360KB drive generally has no problems reading it, because the weaker/smaller data written by the 1.2MB drive does not have any larger/stronger 360KB data overriding it in the sector.

I have never heard about DOS updating the FAT unless you actually write to a disk, however, several versions of Windows does.

As said above, writing to DD floppies with a HD drive is not a good idea. In many causes it doesn't work, however, I have found that some combination of HD drives/floppy disk controllers write data strong enough to be recognized by the Tandon TM-100-2A drives used in most XTs. I am using a TEAC FD-55GFR 149-U5 drive and a generic controller based uppon the GoldStar GM82C765B to write the data.

Even it works for me, it doesn't mean it will surely work using other similar drives/controllers. Maybe the head in the TEAC drive is sligthly un-algined, it may be some tweaks from my floppy disk controller, it may even be the BIOS, or it may be dirty R/W heads in the DD drive use to format the 360Kb disks with.

My conclusion is as said above. It is not safe to transfer data from a HD drive to a DD disk, however, if you find a combination of HD drive/controller that is able to write DD floppies that are readable for DD drives, it is possible. But even you find a combination that works, it is generally unsafe to do it, and there is allways a risk of data-corruption (even if it is rather small).

 

[MikeS]

This topic has come up quite a few times; HD drives are designed to write to both DD and HD disks, automatically adjusting the write current appropriately. With care there shouldn't be any problem copying from an HD drive to a DD drive and vice versa unless one or both of the drives has a problem.

The bottom line is that you should always *write* to a disk with the same drive; avoid writing to the same disk with both HD and DD drives. Bulk erase two DD disks if possible, and format one disk on each drive; mark the disks according to which drive formatted it, and when you want to write something, use the appropriate disk. Basically you'll have one disk for HD>DD transfers and another for DD>HD, and you shouldn't have any problems.

This also sometimes helps when you have errors exchanging disks between the same type of drive when they're a little misaligned with respect to each other.