• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Toshiba T3100e/40 booting from floppy

A

andromeda92

Experienced Member
Joined
May 6, 2020
Messages
263
Location
FRANCE
Hi,
I have toshiba T3100e/40 3GB RAM, disk 40Mo, under dos 6.22.
I can't boot from the floppy, the switch is of course on PRT.
On the other hand its boot well on a DOS 3.30 diskette only, I cannot boot for example on ezdrive, or from a diskette (1.44) dos 6.22.
The floppy drive works well, I can read and write to 720kB and 1.44MB floppy disks.
The bios is version 1.70.
I have tried several floppy disks that work on other PCs.
Do you have an idea ?
 
I just did some tests, it boots well when they are 720kb floppies,
but not with 1.44MB?
May be the bios 1.70 is too old.
I thought I saw that there was a bios 3.0
 
On this type of hardware you shouldn't go above MS-DOS 5, otherwise the system has a tendency to lock up during the boot process. Generally speaking, only go with MS-DOS 6.22 on a 386 or above.

Before the floppy drive in my T3100e/40 went kaplooie I could boot just fine from 1.44MB disks, though in my case, I was using a DOS 3.3 bootdisk written using WinImage. On the hard drive I have Toshiba MS-DOS 4.01 installed.
 
I don't understand because I installed DOS 6.22 on my IBM 5155 (8088) with 640KB
and it works wonderfully, it should work even better on the T3100e with 3GB RAM, for now because I will add an extra 2MB.
I also updated the bios with version 3.
Now it boots with a 1.44MB floppy disk DOS 6.22 but not with another 1.44 with dos 6.22, may be
the other diskette was not didn't burn well with winimage.
it must be the bios which was too old (V1.70) instead of version 3
 
with some floppy disks, it can't boot on them, the reader's LED is red and the disk's is red too.
I also have faulty clusters on my 40MB disk, if the disk tries to read from the hard disk, it may be blocking the boot.

[edit]
When I try to format a 1.44 diskette, I find it very long, then after I have the message:
Checking existing disk format
Formatting 1.44MB
Parameters not supported by drive

The drive not support disk 1.44MB, it's only 720k.
or there is a bad contact on the 26pin IDE connector.
 
Last edited:
andromeda92 said:
The drive not support disk 1.44MB, it's only 720k.
Click to expand...
As the owner of a T3100e, I can confirm the drive DOES support 1.44MB disks, so something is definitely amiss here. Your drive may have failing capacitors, or the density detection switch may be bad.
 
there is a key combination to be able to boot from a floppy but I don't remember which ones are
 
andromeda92 said:
there is a key combination to be able to boot from a floppy but I don't remember which ones are
Click to expand...
It should check the floppy drive on boot up, so all that should have to be done to boot from a diskette is to simply insert it before turning the computer on, like pretty much all others machines of this era.
 
When i test floppy with diagnostic diskette i have this:
FLOPPY DISK ABORTED 503102
What is this code error ?
 
my question is why it boots well with a 1.44 freedos floppy,
another dos 6.22 floppy, but not the other dos 6.22 floppy
which it works well on a pc,
is it from the floppy that was badly written with winimage ?
 
I created a new dos 6.22 diskette with winimage and it works, so it's probably the diskette that was badly copied.
I think the problem is resolved partialy, because the format command not work for 720KB and 1.44MB
Formatting 720kb the message say i can't format 1.44MB.

[EDIT]
I tried to boot with a dos 6.22 floppy and format a 720kb floppy, (format b : ) I still get the message Parameter not supported by drive, so it would be a floppy drive problem ?
I have tested with dos 3.3 and is a same, format command not work.
there must be a jumper or switch on the motherboard that can fix the problem.
 
Last edited:
I just tested the following command:
format a: /F:720
it works.

The command for a 1.44 floppy disk:
format a: /F:1440
does not work

Checking existing disk format
Formatting 1.44M
Parameter not supported by drive

This drive is supposed to work and recognize 720K and 1.44M floppy disks, unless the person has changed their drive and put a 720K drive that can read and write on 1.44M
 
I think because the disk as many defective sector the command format not work well or disquette is defective.
problem resolved
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top