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Tandy 1000 TX Floppy Drive Issues

M

mikem

Member
Joined
Sep 13, 2010
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40
I picked up a Tandy 1000 TX the other day and everything works great except for both 720kb 3.5" floppy drives. Every disk I insert gives errors. When I try to format a disk, it says "Invalid media or track 0 bad". I've tried cleaning the heads (manually with isopropyl alcohol & cotton swabs) and replacing the cable. Disks can be read fine in another known good system. I formatted a disk in the other system, put it in the Tandy and was able to copy some files to it, but then it resumed throwing the same error. I have a hard time believing both drives are bad, but I suppose it's possible however unlikely.

Any ideas? I ordered a Gotek to replace one drive, but I would still like the ability to use floppies (and who knows if the Gotek will work if there is something else going on).

Thanks.
 
What kind of drive do you have installed? The original equipment one with the 5.25" faceplate and large eject button?

Are you using proper double-density disks, or HD disks with the media sense hole taped over?

And since the 1000TX is essentially an XT-class machine with a 286 CPU, you may need to use SETBPB35 to tell it the floppy drive is 720K rather than 360K (see option 2):

 
vwestlife said:
What kind of drive do you have installed? The original equipment one with the 5.25" faceplate and large eject button?

Are you using proper double-density disks, or HD disks with the media sense hole taped over?

And since the 1000TX is essentially an XT-class machine with a 286 CPU, you may need to use SETBPB35 to tell it the floppy drive is 720K rather than 360K (see option 2):

Click to expand...

One of them is the original with the large eject button, the other is a Sony with a similar 5.25" faceplate (MFD110-K0). Tried disconnecting the Sony and using just the factory drive, same issue. I am using the DRIVPARM command in my config.sys file, also driver the driver.sys option, but haven't tried that SETBPB35 file yet.

Been using proper double-density disks as well as a few HD disks with the hole taped over.

Going to give that SETBPB35 thing a shot and will report back! Thank you!
 
DRIVPARM and SETBPB35 should only affect formatting, not reading and writing to already-formatted 720K disks.
 
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