Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!um-math!sharkey!clmqt!tbowser
From: tbowser@clmqt.marquette.Mi.US (Strikemaster)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Need help with 1.44 Meg floppy drive
Keywords: 1.44 floppy help bios
Message-ID: <138@clmqt.marquette.Mi.US>
Date: 2 Nov 89 15:21:57 GMT
References: <18100@bellcore.bellcore.com>
Distribution: na
Organization: Enterprise Information System, Marquette, MI
Lines: 17



   Have had the same fun 'n games when I built my own AT clone. For me, it
turned out that the sensor in the Toshiba drive I finally settled with
cannot read the indent style 1.44 floppies (there is an indent, rather than
a second window through the floppy; Memorex 2S/4D's are a fast example). When I  
finally purchased some of the double-windowed disks, the problem with
Sector Not Found errors went away. It seems that most AT clone BIOS do not
handle the 1.44 drives properly. I have set up a couple of Format batch
files to handle the switches necessary when formatting for 720 3 1/2"s and
360k 5 1/4" in the high density drives.

   I do not use any drivers for the 3 1/2, just normal BIOS handlers. The
motherboard/drive controller combo here is the AST Xformer 286 w/ 1 meg
memory and the Western Digital WD1003-SR2 RLL/floppy. The AST diagnostics
keep telling me the 3 1/2" drive is a 1.2meg, but the BIOS entry is for
1.44 meg. I just live with it and work around the dain-bramaged thing.