umm, can't see old drive in (fairly) modern computer

[pawzisme]

Hello, newbie and not sure if this is the right place to post, but....

I have been engaged for some time in getting text information from 5.25 floppies variously formatted in DOS and CP/M. I have been using Anadisk, dumping to C: and then going through the data and saving any useful text to disk, with the object of returning it all to the wife of the chap, now deceased, who wrote this stuff (he was a successful Christian writer) in a form she can read on her modern PC or Mac so that she can then decide whether or not she wants to keep it.

Fine.

Tediously slow having to go from DOS to Windows, but I have amassed quite a few megabytes over the months.

Then, disaster.

Suddenly, in the middle of a session, the trusty 5.25 drive I have been using (on an old AMD-K5 500MHz machine with Win 98 OS) stopped reading the disks. I thought at first that I had just hit on a couple of corrupted disks, but after I got the same message five times in a row (saying it was a high-density disk in a low-density drive I think)I reckoned I had better check it out with a DOS disk I had scanned previously and which I knew it could read.

I got the same message.

Mph.I went back into Windows and accessed the drive direct, and the list of .docs came up fine there, though I can never actually open them, even in Wordpad.

I am not that knowledgeable about the workings of these old devices, or what the message really points to, so my solution was to go to eBay and buy another 5.25 drive.

This one also works fine, as far as I can tell, but I am still getting the same message via Anadisk, and the same visibility of docs in Windows.

So then I tried a fresh copy of Anadisk - same thing. Then I tried 22disk, stablemate to Anadisk I think.

No change.

So.. wondered if perhaps something had 'gone' on the motherboard. I haven't got any Skt 7 mobo's lying around, so dug out the oldest machine I could find, an Athlon 800mhz, and put the original 5.25 in that.

The BIOS sees it but plugnplay doesn't, so no drive icon and I am stuck.
I would edit the registry if I knew what values were needed to get it to recognise, but my skills don't go that far out of my head.

When I first researched what was needed to read CP/M on a modern PC, I remember seeing something about controllers, and the advice that one should use the oldest AT PC one could find, because the more modern boards do not have an old enough controller built into the motherboard. Is that right? Is that what my problem is? Do I remember ESDI as an issue or is just that my old brain getting muddled?

Any wisdom please?? All polite suggestions welcome

[electroanorak]

Hi,

I can't put my finger on your problem, but I do have loads of old motherboards here.
They would be 486 DX2/66 (with RAM) or there abouts. I think there may be a 486 / 33 complete p.c. here as well.
You would be welcome to them if it would help.


Daniel.

[Dave Moll]

I'm not sure about your accessibility problem, but I am wondering why you are using Anadisk for copying files rather than 22disk (as you say, sister product from Sydex), which is specifically designed for copying files and may prove less laborious than trying to use Anadisk - once you have sorted the disc drive problem.

Incidentally, the "high-density disk in a low-density drive" message simply means that the disc access was unsuccessful - unless you really are trying to read 1.2M discs in a 360K drive.

There shouldn't be any problems with reading CPM files on a modern computer, though I wonder whether the latest systems still support 5¼" disc drives. I wouldn't, however, have thought this was relevant to your problem, as it had been working. I would concentrate on BIOS setup and controller hardware.

[pawzisme]

electro - thank you for the offer; kind of you. I want to try and fix with what I have here already before going to the bother of installing a new mobo, setting it up, getting drivers etc. If I can't, then I will try for a socket 7. Appreciate the offer though

Dave, I used Anadisk because I understand it also looks for deleted files on the disk, which 22disk does not. As it happens I don't now feel searching for deleted stuff is useful to me, but having started with Anadisk, I thought I would finish, as they say.

Thank you for explaining the message. I thought it was something like that, but my puzzle was/is why I suddenly start getting it when the setup has been chugging merrily along for months - nothing was physically changed, it just stopped reading, and ditto with the new drive I put in subsequently.

Wordpad does not read from cp/m disks that were first used on a TRS80 (VideoGenie), not on my computer anyway, but it does read any text that I dump onto the C: drive from a cp/m disk.

I do not know what else I can modify in BIOS in the 'new' computer - it is enabled, is seen in POST, but not in Windows. I set the OS to be PNP and for the PNP in BIOS to reconfigure, but it made no difference.

I think the controller hardware might be the place to look for solutions- but what am I looking for?? I would rather work from the AMD-K5 as that has done the job quite happily for the past 18 months or so, and if 'all' I need is a new ISA/PCI controller card, if such a thing exists, then that would be an aiming point, but..?

[Skywave]

Originally Posted by pawzisme

Suddenly, in the middle of a session, the trusty 5.25 drive I have been using (on an old AMD-K5 500MHz machine with Win 98 OS) stopped reading the disks. I thought at first that I had just hit on a couple of corrupted disks, but after I got the same message five times in a row (saying it was a high-density disk in a low-density drive I think)I reckoned I had better check it out with a DOS disk I had scanned previously and which I knew it could read.

Do I remember ESDI as an issue or is just that my old brain getting muddled?

A number of scenarios spring to mind.

1. If your original 5.25" FDD is a 1200 KB drive & you were using 1200 KB disks, it is possible that the BIOS now thinks that the FDD is a 360 KB type. (Why? BIOS settings can get corrupted for all sorts of reasons ) Enter the BIOS settings table - and you may find it has changed (for some reason) and caused this. Just reset the table to "1200 KB disk" - or whatever name the table wants to call it - e.g. "high-density FDD".

2. If, however, the BIOS table is correct - and assuming that the replacement drive(s) you have tried were 1200KB types and were "known good" and that your input media (1200 KB FDDs) are good also - it sounds like a hardware failure. Try replacing the cable from the FDD to the MoBo.

3. If your original 5.25 FDD is a 360 KB drive, then it won't read 1200 KB floppies. Period. The only fix here is to use 360 KB floppies or change the FDD for a 1200 KB type. If your floppies were 360 KB with a 360 KB drive, then check the BIOS table as above. If this is OK, then step #2 above applies (for "1200 KB" read "360 KB").

Aside: I don't think that this scenario #3 applies to your case; I mention it for completeness only.

Finally, when silly things like this happen to PCs, try to recall if you made any hardware or software changes prior to the onset of the fault. It's unfortunately very easy to "do" something to a PC - & check out the obvious results - and conclude "that works! It's O.K.!" - only to then discover - later - that an unexpected 'development' has occured in an unlikely place.

Incidentally, ESDI is not an issue here.

Al / Skywave.

[wave solder]

One other thing to remember with the old 5.25" FDD's is if a 360kb disk has been written to by a 1.2Mb FDD (as a 360Kb disk), it will not be then readable again with a 360Kb FDD because the head in a 1.2Mb fdd is half the width. so only half the track width gets written to by the 1.2Mb fdd and the rest of the track width still contains the old information, instant data corruption.

[pawzisme]

Skywave. I am not sure what size the original FDD is. It seemed able to read single and double density disks in Anadisk and higher density as well, I think?. I recall that most of the disks were around 460 kb - would that be right? The text I got off many of them would be amount to 300kb plus.

When Anadisk works it gives you a cylinder range of 80, though in practice the disk would be checked through at around 40.Sometimes single-sided, mostly, but occasionally double, when the arrow would turn both ways before going on.

I did not look in the BIOS to see if the correct FDD was (still) enabled on the AMD machine when it went wrong, but when I put the same FDD into the Athlon, then I enabled the FDD as 1.2 but the drive isn't seen in Windows anyway, which is where my primary problem now lies I feel. Maybe I will go back into BIOS and see if any of the other settings work, though I believe it should be a 1.2 MB according to the details given by the seller.

I take your point about changes prior to the fault being possible culprits, but in this case, I was in the middle of a disk-reading session when the drive stopped reading and the message came up. When I tried the old FDD in a new computer, I put in another cable, but again,it is not seen in Windows. Thank you for your help, espesh about the ESDI, I can stop wondering about that then!



Wavesoldier

ahh, sounds frightening - but I have not written to any of these and so I would expect those I have already checked through to still be readable. Still, glad you told me that

ps.I have just checked, and the old drive is probably a 720K (so disks were probably likewise, not 460 as I thought I remembered), and the new drive is a 1.2MB.I tried the new one on the new machine again, at the correct setting, but no joy, and previous to that tried the old FDD in the new machine on every setting available in BIOS for 5.25, but still no go.

We are going to get a universal I/O card which will give us a FDD 360 and 1.2 MB FDD controller on an ISA card

[Zelandeth]

Admittedly I just skimmed through this, so I may have missed something obvious.

It sounds as through the disc is still being "seen" by the computer - we just can't read any real data from it.

Is it possible that the heads just need cleaning? Maybe one of the disks you read most recently was a particularly dusty one and has now gummed the heads up. It's not unusual for a disk which is effectively knackered to be readable to the extent that you can still see a list of what's on it - but just encounter a bunch of read errors if you try to actually open any of the files.

I also think back to an old Cumana 5.25" drive I used to had which actually had a switch on the front panel for switching from HD to LD operation - while it sounds horribly obvious that's not the case here is it? I remember when switching between disks that it caught me out a couple of times.

[Skywave]

Pawsizme -

When you moved the FDD into the substitute machine, presumably you used the same disk as you were using before the move? In which case, you don't know if the FDD itself is faulty or the disk. Try one of the previously 'proven good' disks in the substitute machine: you need to establish which of these two is OK - which includes checking the BIOS settings in each machine.

Perhaps you've done this - in which case, ignore that comment. .

You make reference to a 720KB drive. For DOS, there was not a format for 720KB in a 5.25" disk. For DOS, only 360KB and 1200KB (called 'high-density') soft-sectored 5.25" were made (CP/M disks were hard-sectored and as such had a different capacity: 760KB, ISTR. You can't read hard-sectored disks in a soft-sectored FDD). The 3.5" disks for DOS originally came as 720KB ('double-density': 360*2) then later as 1440KB ('quad density': 360*4).

[That comment ignores the special Japanese FDD produced by IBM].

The point I'm trying to make here is that the BIOS in a given machine may refer to drive type by capacity size only - it assumes you are aware of the above - or it may refer to drive type by a capacity name - again, it assumes that you know the above relationships.

The confusion over disk capacity names / sizes has caught me out before - albeit a long time ago - and the above is written from a long-stretched memory!

Finally, the above comment of crud coming off the disk and contaiminating the read head is a distinct possibility. 5.25" disks will have been around a long time by now and as such the magnetic oxide is probably pretty flaky by now. You may still be able to obtain 5.25" FDD cleaning disks these days (I doubt it) - otherwise a very careful dismantling of the drive head assy. and a manual clean of the head with a cotton bud and IPA will be the answer. BUT- as always - do the simple, obvious things first: check the BIOS; determine if the FDD - or disk - or both - are the culprit. Since you get the same problem on each machine, a MoBo fault seems pretty unlikely.

And good luck!

Al / Skywave.

[Skywave]

Originally Posted by Zelandeth

I also think back to an old Cumana 5.25" drive I used to have which actually had a switch on the front panel for switching from HD to LD operation.

.

Goodness me! I'd forgotten about those - I had one too (a different make; Teac?) in a '386 machine (long since gone) - and I too used to get occasionally caught out likewise! . It was configurable as drive A and drive B - you had to get the BIOS settings correct accordingly.

Al / Skywave.

[BGmidsUK]

Just to add, in case this is any use:

Most if not all modern motherboards should recognize a 5¼" drive, mine only refers to disk size and not its capacity in BIOS settings. If DOS can access it that proves the hardware is OK! It would be good if you have a DOS boot disk just to see if the drive works. Many modern mobos may have limited support though (what the "limitations" are I have no idea)

Windows xp including sp3 DOES support reading and writing, natively, of 360k DD, 720k QD and 1200k HD disks (and DD/HD drives) displaying a 5¼" disk with drive as the icon! though it will not FORMAT these disks .. I use WinImage (or OmniFlop) to format them. Neither will it create a boot disk on one, for the same reasons. Some drives can also read and write 320k disks, directly from Windows. The single sided 180/160k formats are equally supported as well.

I would strongly suspect crud on the drive heads, it only takes a small layer of muck to cause read/write issues! The drive you bought could well have the same problem. Though it is possible that the FDD controller has gone wrong.

Bear in mind that anything you get off eBay or anywhere else via mail order will have been thrown about by the courier services, I had 3 drives two of which had the heads out of alignment due to rough handling :mad: took me ages to work out why disks created on either my 8088 Amstrad PC640 or modern Athlon wouldn't read in the other machine, turns out alignment of the "new" drive in the Athlon machine was the cause of all the problems ...



BG

[Rat boy]

It is a reasonable assumption to assume that the drive is faulty/dirty/misaligned, but you say you tried a new one with the same results?

It's pretty easy to clean the heads/mech on these, I've even swapped individual heads in these with varying success..

So we move to the issue of BIOS or hardware changes..(btw I'm not familiar with the software you mention); yes its a reasonable assumption to say that the BIOS isn't set to what it should be, and as suggested, things can get changed for no apparent reason..

But this is the point I was leading to, and was my initial thought..I'm a member of a few retro/emulator forums, and there is therefore need to transfer software between systems, and a recent discussion revolved around what you discuss, and its the actual software that was updated, which introduced a bug, so 'say' 80 track disk wasn't read because the buggy software thought of it as a 40 track, and double stepped it incorrectly, although this was managed in hardware normally, the buggy software overrode it..

So maybe the software that you are using has developed a fault? an update that broke it? Maybe therefore try the floppy drive on a different system if possible?

No way a definitave answer, and a lot of info 3rd hand, but some points to consider I hope? Hopefully resolved soon, for the good service that you are supplying, in the situation.

[pawzisme]

gosh, there is a lot here to respond to, and I have been away too, apologies for that.

Rat boy ( I used to have two female hooded rats who lived in ( and under) a shed in the garden. Great friends we were).

We will clean the first drive, as you say. Hubs is good at that sorta thing, very methodical and does it proper-like, so I will give it to him to do.

I will also get the model number off the drive and check what capacity it is for. Then I will make sure the BIOS reflects that, though actually I have tried all options already with no change.

I put a fresh copy of Anadisk on a different floppy with no improvement, and then tried 22disk, which is a stablemate to Anadisk - zilch again.

I could try the floppy drive on a different system - but the new drive is on that different system but remains invisible. That is a 1.2 Mb. I suspect the old FDD will also remain invisible and that the invisibility is something to do with the machine being too modern - but this is just my guess.

My instinct is to go back to the old computer, if you folks here do not think something on the mobo has 'gone', because that machine has been doing the job just fine for months and months.
I appreciate your friendly help, thank you

[pawzisme]

BGmidsUK It is certainly recognised in BIOS, so I figured it was the PnP enumerator that was not seeing it. I haven't thought about looking for it in DOS. It needs to be visible in Windows too.

To my shame I have not previously thought too much about the different formats of these disks and the drive reading them etc - it seemed to be doing all that I asked; Anadisk would scan the entire disk and then dump it to C:, and then I would go through and extract the text that was pertinent, and that was that.... I didn't need to format or repair or copy.

This issue of cleaning has come up several times, so we will do that job, though I am not optimistic. Still you all know a lot more than I do about these things. The FDD controller is, or was, where my finger of suspicion wanted to point, simply because it was a sudden event. However, the cleaning thing is raising itself as a need to do job, not just because it has been mentioned here, but also because I have fairly recently moved from working with disks that have been in their own hard-cover cases, and so well protected from dirt, to disks which have been stored standing unprotected, apart from their sleeves in a box, and so the opportunity for dirt and dust to have got in is much increased.

I am encouraged

[pawzisme]

Skywave, no,I used a known OK.

What you say about the formats is education, but I am confused. What I am going to do as soon as I have finished here, is get the original FDD, and check out its specs via the model number. That will settle it as far as THAT is concerned

- but the disks umm, I have wondered and worried about this from time to time because although Anadisk gives me 80 sectors (?) the scan almost always stops at 40, and is usually ssd, I have thought, what if it is only checking half the disk area?? I have told it to begin the scan at 0 and end at 175, so that it would really go to the full capacity,butI do not really understand how to informatively read the information the disk read gives me.

My assumption was that I was getting the whole content of the disk dumped to C: and that was all I wanted.

The disks will probably be jettisoned after I have got all the text off, even though there seems to be good stuff on them.

I don't see anyone falling over to buy 5.25's on eBay so guess they are of no great value.

Now some of these disks are IBM DOS, others are CP/M, used on one or both of two Video Genies, which seem to correlate with TRS80 II machines if I remember aright. I have accessed both sorts of these disks via Anadisk, which seemed quite agreeable and of course the FDD must have been reading them as well, mustn't it?

Confused and a bit concerned - but puzzled because it seems to have been chuntering merrily along all this time..

I am not getting the same problem on each machine. I got the same problem using two different FDD's on the old machine, and when I switched the new drive to a new machine, found that the drive is invisible in Windows even though it is recognised in BIOS. IT is a 1.2 MB btw.

Yes, we will do a clean - every one is telling us to do this I will give it to hubs who is an electrical engineer (ret) and has a profound respect for all gadgets. He will do it good.

Bless you all for the help you are (trying) to give me

[pawzisme]

Zelandeth, yes, cleaning it is our next job - I hope to report back with a positive outcome (cheesy grin)

[pawzisme]

did I miss anyone??

[pawzisme]

aha... it is a Mitsumi D509v 1.2 Mb drive...the old one.
The new one is also a 1.2 Mb.

Well, that is that sorted out.
Himself has got the drive now, to clean it, and if it works when I get it again, I shall be back here to give you the good news.

[pawzisme]

helloo, back again

himself cleaned the 'old' FDD, but with no change, so I connected up the 'new' drive to the old machine again. This time it worked! It is reading DOS and CP/M.

I am perplexed. Why it didn't work and gave the same error message when I first used it to replace the old FDD I cannot think - unless as someone suggested the BIOS config had set itself to a lower capacity drive. I find that hard to believe, but what else would it be?
The old 1.2mb drive still isn't working on its correct setting, but now this one is... well, I dunno, but hey, I am back in business and I have learned a bit more about retro computing thanks to you, so it has not been a wasted exercise. Big thank you's all round Gracie

[whyperion]

The Problem with Operating Systems ... ( assuming all the Hardware is OK ).
Is that A) The BIOS needs to know where things are - The use of Controllers ( On board or socket added ) , and interupts in the BIOS for things like mice drivers , modems and the like CAN cause confusion in the operating system- which may , or may not , read the BIOS settings correctly in its own set up. Windows CAN 'lose' drive letters , you may have made drive A or B or C: = the CD-ROM drive for example in error. ( My knowledge of Windows runs out at about NT/2000 - I prefer still Win98 for most things. Sometimes the drive letters are supposed to increment correctly as new drives are added , but they may not. Also in Windows one can change the Interupt Addresses and cause problems there. Additionally Some FDD and HDD cables wont work on differing mainboards ( I always had problems with Compaq 286s and similar as the drive cables seem to be specific for Primary and Secondary / Slave drives and wont work in other machines.

I have a few desktop and half height deskopt / tower Cases with 386s / 486s and oddments of memory to dispose of - I was going to scrap them but if anyone has a specific want please feel free to contact me , also 30 New Boxed 5.25 disks ( most of my older finds and bits including Software I dropped off a few years ago at Bletchley ).