Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!novavax!hcx1!hardy!leoh
From: leoh@hardy.hdw.csd.harris.com (Leo Hinds)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: 3.5" floppies on a true blue PC (was Re: 3.5" reliable floppy drive)
Message-ID: <3254@hcx1.SSD.CSD.HARRIS.COM>
Date: 12 Mar 90 22:03:35 GMT
References: <136@vela.acs.oakland.edu>
Sender: news@hcx1.SSD.CSD.HARRIS.COM
Reply-To: leoh@hardy.hdw.csd.harris.com (Leo Hinds)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Harris Computer Systems, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Lines: 27

In article <136@vela.acs.oakland.edu> bbesler@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Brent Besler) writes:
>I have a 3.5" Teac floppy in my 386 clone with a WD1006VSR2 floppy/hard
>controller.  I have no problem reading, writing, or formatting 720K and 1.44
>Mbyte disks. I tend to use 3M disks.

On a related note, is there ANYTHING I can do to coerce my true blue PC 
(256k MB) to recognize 720/1.44 floppies? ... I have tried 3 different 
controllers, and they all claim to allow XT's (clones only?) to use 1.44MB 
floppies with DOS >=3.3 (I use DOS4.01).

However, using sony, teac or mitsumi 1.44 drives all I can do is as follows:
1) chkdsk/read/write with a 720k pre-formatted floppy
2) format ONLY as a 360k floppy (greater format requests result in a 
   "Parameters not compatible - Format terminated" error message)
3) preformatted 1.44 (readable/writable in laptop & AT at work as 1.44s) 
   result in abort/retry/fail? message for any disk operation.

All three cards specifically mentioned that on an XT, the card's BIOS routines 
MUST be used as the XT would not correctly recognize the higher densities 
otherwise.  The cards are configured as instructed for this to be so.

Any hints?


leoh@hdw.csd.harris.com         	Leo Hinds       	(305)973-5229
Gfx ... gfx ... :-) whfg orpnhfr V "ebg"grq zl fvtangher svyr lbh guvax V nz n
creireg ?!!!!!!? ... znlor arkg gvzr