🚀 go-pugleaf

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)

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        Rick Harris | Information & Decision Systems with Computer Science 
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        Social & Decision Sciences Department       |      Carnegie Mellon
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        Jello is a dish best served cold.....