Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!gatech!psuvax1!psuhcx!wcf
From: wcf@psuhcx.psu.edu (Bill Fenner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Disk inserted???
Message-ID: <955@psuhcx.psu.edu>
Date: 10 Oct 88 15:17:51 GMT
References: <55969UH2@PSUVM> <3278@nicmad.UUCP>
Reply-To: wcf@psuhcx (Bill Fenner)
Distribution: na
Organization: Penn State University
Lines: 25

In article <3278@nicmad.UUCP> brown@nicmad.UUCP (Mr. Video) writes:
|In article <55969UH2@PSUVM> UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) writes:
|<Will someone suggest a way to test for the absence of a floppy from
|<a BAT file that doesn't generate the Abort, Retry, Ignore message.
|
|With 360K diskette drives, it can't be done.  I don't know how to do it

Actually, it's rather simple.  At least, it is on other machines, I'm not
sure if the IBM floppy controller can do this (I would hope it would.)
Anyway, you have to talk straight to the drive controller... select the
drive, make it spin... then watch the index hole led line... if it's always
high, you have no disk.  If it's low and goes high 5 times every second,
it's got a disk in it (360k).  If it's low and goes high 6 times every second,
it's got a high-density disk in it (the one that goes 360 rpm instead of
300.)  If it's constantly low, you have a problem - either the led is
burned out or the disk is wedged, or you have a piece of cardboard in the
drive.

  Good luck

    Bill
-- 
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