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Very strange floppy issue

D

dr.zeissler

Experienced Member
Joined
Jan 4, 2014
Messages
438
Location
Germany
Hi there I have a very strange issue with my 5,25" floppydrive in my K6/2 machines.

In short:
- floppy can be formated
- works 100% copy/delete
- reboot floppy does not work anymore
- can make the same procedure and it works until next reboot.

What do you think is the problem here:

I already used several os including dos 3.3
regardless if emm, himem or no memory manager is installed.

I already used bios-defaults, the issue stays.

Thx
Doc
 
Are you trying to format the disk as a boot disk, i.e. to put the System on it? This happens ONLY if you explicitly instruct so.

After the format, yes, the disk may well be fine - for normal operations.

When you re-boot, are you rebooting from the floppy? If the disk is still in A: this it what the system will try to do?

Does the disk complete the boot OK? It can do this ONLY if the system is there to load, otherwise you should get an error message.

If it DOES boot - so the system is there - but there are problems, please give more details about the problems, and any error messages you see.

Geoff
 
Nice system!
Offhand, I have to wonder what you've set your CMOS configuration for the drive type. Also, once you've formatted and copied files to the disk, what happens if you remove the floppy and re-insert it without re-booting? Is it still readable? You might grab a copy of something like Anadisk off the web and inspect the disk when if fails regular DOS operations.
 
Format C: /s is only for writing test. system cannot boot from B: drive. No Bios-swap Option.
EDIT: I never made a "format /s" in that video, but I did it off cam. It's not intended to boot from 5,25 in that machine,, it's only intend is to write 360K Disks for my XT computers.

To make that more clear:
- After cold or warm boot the 5,25 never works with any disk
- After formatting a disk, every 360k disk works, regardless if was used by this drive or another
- After another reboot cold or warm it never works with any disk

So I have to format a disk after restart in order to use that drive.

The "seek" at boot does something to the drive and "formatting" corrects that. this is how it's actually.
 
Last edited:
GeoffB17 said:
1. Are you trying to format the disk as a boot disk, i.e. to put the System on it? This happens ONLY if you explicitly instruct so.
2. After the format, yes, the disk may well be fine - for normal operations.
3. When you re-boot, are you rebooting from the floppy? If the disk is still in A: this it what the system will try to do?
4. Does the disk complete the boot OK? It can do this ONLY if the system is there to load, otherwise you should get an error message.
5. If it DOES boot - so the system is there - but there are problems, please give more details about the problems, and any error messages you see.
Geoff
Click to expand...
1. NO (see "edit" of the post before)
2. OK
3. No, because it's B: and there is no Bios-Option for swapping A:<>B:
4. see 3
5. see former post
 
Last edited:
Chuck(G) said:
Nice system!
Offhand, I have to wonder what you've set your CMOS configuration for the drive type. Also, once you've formatted and copied files to the disk, what happens if you remove the floppy and re-insert it without re-booting? Is it still readable? You might grab a copy of something like Anadisk off the web and inspect the disk when if fails regular DOS operations.
Click to expand...
Thanks.

It should be a 360K drive but I have no manual for it. I am also not sure about the jumpering.
There was some strange jumpering before and I had to change some jumpers in oder to get a disk formatted.
 
IMG_1938 former jumper settings as I got the drive (never used it before, bought as untested 10 years ago)
IMG_1955 actual jumper settings

I got some advice:
- remove TM<>DS0
- remove "MR"
- set "300"
- set 1SP to 2SP

Without "300" the drive does not format any floppy. "MR" seems to do nothing.
TM<>DS0 and 1SP/2SP I have not retested by putting/changing the jumpers back to that.
 

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+1 means that I agree with the previous post.

But now I have reached home (I was out) I watched your video fully and I now see your problem. You are not actually booting from the B: floppy drive (so no /S is necessary for the format), however, the directory cannot be read from the B: drive following a reboot.

I see you are using QuickBoot and are a bit fast with the commands so I can't actually see what you are doing.

I see you mentioned changing the floppy drive links in a subsequent post.

One other possibility is that the directory manipulation is occurring in the machine's RAM and is not being actually written to the disk on a reboot?

Just thinking aloud...

Dave
 
Does this happen with a single floppy disk or is the behavior the same for all disks you've tried?
One ugly thing that occurs to me is that you might have a boot sector virus that doesn't quite match the standard boot sector (i.e. no 55 AA at the end). While the disk is in system, everything is fine, but once rebooted, DOS doesn't recognize the boot sector and so returns an error.
Which is why I recommended something like Anadisk, which does not rely on the BIOS or DOS to show what's really on the disk.

I don't think there's anything wrong with your drive. But I'm just guessing...
 
daver2 said:
+1 means that I agree with the previous post.
But now I have reached home (I was out) I watched your video fully and I now see your problem. You are not actually booting from the B: floppy drive (so no /S is necessary for the format), however, the directory cannot be read from the B: drive following a reboot.
I see you are using QuickBoot and are a bit fast with the commands so I can't actually see what you are doing.
I see you mentioned changing the floppy drive links in a subsequent post.
One other possibility is that the directory manipulation is occurring in the machine's RAM and is not being actually written to the disk on a reboot?
Just thinking aloud...
Dave
Click to expand...
no, it was never intended to boot from B:, it was supposed to write disks for my xt
 
Chuck(G) said:
Does this happen with a single floppy disk or is the behavior the same for all disks you've tried?
One ugly thing that occurs to me is that you might have a boot sector virus that doesn't quite match the standard boot sector (i.e. no 55 AA at the end). While the disk is in system, everything is fine, but once rebooted, DOS doesn't recognize the boot sector and so returns an error.
Which is why I recommended something like Anadisk, which does not rely on the BIOS or DOS to show what's really on the disk.

I don't think there's anything wrong with your drive. But I'm just guessing...
Click to expand...
It's even more strange to me, so I made a new video.
 
F-Prot did not show a bootsector virus, as you see in the video above only DOS is the problem,
if there is no plug&play "fix" within the win95 start, then this indicates in the virus direction---

but I booted several different os, even on Floppy and the issue stays the same.
 
Please find a copy of Anadisk and inspect what is in the first sector--or if Anadisk delivers an error. Right now, we're just taking random stabs at the issue.
 
Very likley a bios issue...

do you know a programm for the autoexec.bat or config.sys that lets you correct 300kps to 250kps for a floppydrivecontroller?
thats whats the fault here, because:

1,2MB 5,25 Floppy works just fine.
1,44MB 3,5 Floppy works for HD Disks too, not for DD Disks with the same bios-setting 5,25 360K.
Win95 has direkt acess to the FDC and does not rely on the faulty bios.

I am pretty sure that this is the problem here. I can't fix this in the bios, so it had to be fixed within dos...
esiest way would be to format a floppy before making use of that 5,25" 360k drive or a software-fix that
tells the bios to change from 300kps to 250kps.
 
By the way, your videos (YouTube) will not play on my XP machine, error messages coming back from YouTube.

Selecting the speed (300kps or 250kps) - isn't that something that can be set via the jumpers? Drives that I have swap between 360k and 1.2Mb format quite happily. Need to know which jumper selects, there may be two involved?

Geoff
 
If your BIOS setup is set for the B: drive to be 1.44M and not 1.2M you will experience the problem you describe.
Obviously, you are unwilling to see what is actually on the formatted disk using a non-BIOS utility like Anadisk, so I'm going away on this one.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Obviously, you are unwilling to see what is actually on the formatted disk using a non-BIOS utility like Anadisk, so I'm going away on this one.
Click to expand...
I believe he doesn't know anything about Anadisk and what a helpfull programm it is.
 
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