Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!ncar!gatech!rutgers!att!homxb!hounx!marty1
From: marty1@hounx.ATT.COM (M.B.BRILLIANT)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: No luck with FDFORMAT
Message-ID: <1322@hounx.ATT.COM>
Date: 14 Apr 89 01:41:39 GMT
Organization: AT&T BL Holmdel NJ USA
Lines: 36

I couldn't get FDFORMAT to do anything useful.  For most formats it
gave me an error message and stopped before it even started the drive
motor.  Sometimes it started spinning and gave me a message for the
first track.

I had better luck with FDREAD.  I found I could use it instead of SMAX
to read a disk formatted with MAXI-Form at 1.4M.

But getting FDREAD up and running was a challenge.  The READ.ME file
just said to type the command FDREAD, which is not much use when there
is no .COM, .EXE, or .BAT file around with that name.  Neither of my
assemblers would handle FDREAD.ASM; both gave error messages.  But I
noticed that there was something suspiciously familiar about the
content of FDREAD.TXT, so I just typed debug <fdread.txt, and out came
a working FDREAD.COM as if by magic.

There must be something wrong with my rig.  I have an XTurbo clone with
DTK boards and a Mitsumi 1.2M floppy drive, along with a Seagate hard
drive.  I can format either 360K or 1.2M floppies with either the DOS
FORMAT command, or CONFMT.  MAXI-Form will format 1.4M floppies and
with SMAX I can read and write them.

But MAXI won't format a 420K floppy at all.  I can format 720K or 800K
floppies with CONFMT, 800KFMAT, or MAXI, but when I try to read or
write a file of any substantial size I get a "sector not found" error.
I can't read 720K disks written for Tandy clones either.

Does anybody have any idea what I should look for to find out why these
famous formatters fail on my facilities?

M. B. Brilliant					Marty
AT&T-BL HO 3D-520	(201) 949-1858
Holmdel, NJ 07733	att!hounx!marty1

Disclaimer: Opinions stated herein are mine unless and until my employer
            explicitly claims them; then I lose all rights to them.