umm, can't see old drive in (fairly) modern computer - Page 2 - UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum

GMB · 15th Apr 2008, 10:01 am

It sounds to me like a cable or controller problem.

Many years ago I wrote a program like Anadisk but it was a long time ago!
As I recall the BIOS was not much involved with reading and writing funny discs. You just need it to recognise the disc for DOS and I also used it to handle the spin time-out and it maybe helped with the DMA. Everything else was done by directly taking over the controller. This also means that such software cannot work on an XP/NT class machine and I suspect that if the machine has "plug and pray" then it is far too modern!

The issues with funny discs were:
40/80 track
single/double side
FM/MFM recording mode
High/Low flux density
Sector size and track layout

This is mostly down to the software driving it. For reading you need a double sided disc with 80-track heads and it can then read all comers. Perhaps surprisingly, all the rest is down to the controller and the controlling software.

I do have some very ancient PCs lying around if you need a downgrade.

15th Apr 2008, 10:01 am	#21
GMB Dekatron Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: near Reading (and sometimes Torquay) Posts: 3,094	Re: umm, can't see old drive in (fairly) modern computer It sounds to me like a cable or controller problem. Many years ago I wrote a program like Anadisk but it was a long time ago! As I recall the BIOS was not much involved with reading and writing funny discs. You just need it to recognise the disc for DOS and I also used it to handle the spin time-out and it maybe helped with the DMA. Everything else was done by directly taking over the controller. This also means that such software cannot work on an XP/NT class machine and I suspect that if the machine has "plug and pray" then it is far too modern! The issues with funny discs were: 40/80 track single/double side FM/MFM recording mode High/Low flux density Sector size and track layout This is mostly down to the software driving it. For reading you need a double sided disc with 80-track heads and it can then read all comers. Perhaps surprisingly, all the rest is down to the controller and the controlling software. I do have some very ancient PCs lying around if you need a downgrade.