Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!utcsri!utegc!utai!garfield!dalcs!lane From: lane@dalcs.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Format problems on AT clone... Message-ID: <2570@dalcs.UUCP> Date: Mon, 15-Jun-87 04:56:10 EDT Article-I.D.: dalcs.2570 Posted: Mon Jun 15 04:56:10 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 16-Jun-87 00:39:02 EDT References: <717@cod.UUCP> <691@percival.UUCP> <38@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu> Reply-To: lane@dalcs.UUCP (John Wright/Dr. Pat Lane) Organization: Dept. of Math., Stats & C.S., Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada Lines: 50 In article <691@percival.UUCP> leonard@percival.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) writes: >I've encountered problems formatting floppies (esp 1.2 meg) on a couple >of AT clones ... with both MSDOS 3.1 & PC-DOS 3.1. >I can format 360k floppies after reducing the number of buffers in >CONFIG.SYS from 40 to 36. (it works, but _why_?!) >I still couldn't format 1.2 meg disks... >I found a "solution". Go into BASIC and type SHELL "FORMAT A:" >I hope all this will help some guru track down the source of this problem. In article <38@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu> ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Ralf Brown) writes: >Your problems are due to a major omission in *all* versions of FORMAT. FORMAT, >of necessity, uses several buffers for writing to the disk. Unfortunately, >FORMAT does not check to see whether its buffers cross a 64K boundary!!! >Since the DMA chip handles only 16-bit addresses on its own ... If the buffer >you tell the ROM BIOS to use crosses a 64K boundary, the ROM will return an >error. It is this error that prompts FORMAT to give its own error message. > >There is only one solution--change the amount of memory used by DOS and any >TSR's until the buffers move off of the 64K boundary. Changing the number >of buffers will work, as will removing (or *adding*) a resident program. I read the above with great interest as I have had problems formatting HD disks for 1.2 Meg on my AT clone since moving to DOS 3.2. Several versions of DOS 3.1 had worked OK but I bought 3.2 from Microsoft directly and this bug came with it. With "format a:", I get: Head 0, cylinder 0 Head 1, cylinder 0 Parameters not compatible Invalid media or track 0 bad - disk unusable This is with proper HD diskettes and my SETUP has A: a high-capacity drive. I can read and write 1.2 Meg disks no probs but DISKCOPY from a 1.2M disk to an unformatted disk bombs, saying the disk types are incompatible. I can format 360K disks with "format a:/4" no problem. I'm using Phoenix 80286 BIOS ver 3.01. The problem occurs with my machine at 6MHz or 10. My floppy drive is a Panasonic JU-475-2. I think I may have been told that Compaq 3.2 works on the same clone but I'm not sure about that. Based on the above, I tried removing all TRS's and changing my buffers= in config.sys to the entire range from 19 to 40 and also 60, 80 and 99, diligently rebooting each time and trying "format a:" from DOS and GW- BASIC each time. No joy. I would REALLY appreciate it if some "guru" would come up with a solution to this one for me as it's a real sore thumb. -- John Wright ////////////////// Phone: 902-424-3805 or 902-424-6527 Post: c/o Dr Pat Lane, Biology Dept, Dalhousie U, Halifax N.S., CANADA B3H-4H8 Ean/Bitnet: lane@cs.dal.cdn Arpa: lane%cs.dal.cdb%ubc.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa Uucp:{seismo,watmath,utai,garfield}!dalcs!lane Csnet:lane%cs.dal.cdn@ubc.csnet