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making floppy disk's

H

harry

Experienced Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2007
Messages
310
Location
United Kingdom
I am not sure if this is the correct place to ask for some help, but making new disk's , from downloaded images seems to cover all aspects of using machines? I am needing to make a boot disk from a downloaded image, the image is a copy of a SS/DD disk and I have followed instructions using Teledisk 2.16 for 3.5 " floppies, what I am unsure about is what floppy drive I should be using to make the new disks ? I have tried using my 1.44 hd drive on my dos machine, and Teledisk shows up errors on every sector? the disk not working when I tried it. I then tried making a disk from a DS/DD image and Teledisk worked without any errors showing up while writing to the new disk? I have sourced some DS/DD disks, I assumed writing to one side would be the way to copy the SS/DD image. has anyone had this same result, or is it just me doing something wrong, .... Harry
 
Thanks for the link, interesting reading, it seems writing an image via Teledisk
would be no problem, using ds/dd disks as the media to copy a ss/dd image,
and the 1.44 hd drive would do the job, but this is where I am at... it does'nt
work with the images I have been using, I must try and find out if the images
are intact and actually complete. I need to make a boot disk for a HP150A
touchscreen,with a 9121 drive, the disk image for the system disk is available from the HP museum, I have tried various downloaded images (with SS/DD format) and none will make a disk using a 1.44 hd floppy drive? anyone like to give it a try??? be nice to see if it can be done. ....Harry
 
Well, I fired up DOS 7.1 on an old Toshiba Infinia 7201 desktop (P1 200MHz) and ran off the first (system disk) with no problems. I verified the contents with the HP150.SYS DOS driver. Here's the directory:
Code: 
 Volume in drive G is SYS_MASTER 
 Directory of G:\

CONFIG   SYS            25  11-24-86  1:00p CONFIG.SYS
PAMCODE  EXE         2,921  11-24-86  1:00p PAMCODE.EXE
PAMCODE  OVL        13,367  11-24-86  1:00p PAMCODE.OVL
FILEMGR  OVL        38,768  11-24-86  1:00p FILEMGR.OVL
COMMAND  COM        23,239  09-08-86  8:00a COMMAND.COM
PAM      BAT            31  09-08-86  8:00a PAM.BAT
FILEMGR  IN$            72  11-24-86  1:00p FILEMGR.IN$
FILEMGR  EXE         1,185  11-24-86  1:00p FILEMGR.EXE
COMMAND  IN$           158  09-08-86  8:00a COMMAND.IN$
CHKDSK   EXE         9,680  09-08-86  8:00a CHKDSK.EXE
MORE     COM           266  09-08-86  8:00a MORE.COM
SYS      EXE         3,920  09-08-86  8:00a SYS.EXE
TERMINAL EXE           831  09-08-86  8:00a TERMINAL.EXE
AUTOEXEC BAT            10  10-12-84  5:00p AUTOEXEC.BAT
EDITKEYS EXE         1,238  10-12-84  5:00p EDITKEYS.EXE
ASSIGN   COM         1,523  09-08-86  8:00a ASSIGN.COM
SHARE    EXE         5,360  09-08-86  8:00a SHARE.EXE
FORMAT   IN$            64  09-08-86  8:00a FORMAT.IN$
FORMAT   EXE        17,676  09-08-86  8:00a FORMAT.EXE
FORMAT   MSG         5,653  09-08-86  8:00a FORMAT.MSG
DEVCONFG IN$            76  09-08-86  8:00a DEVCONFG.IN$
DEVCONFG EXE         7,900  09-08-86  8:00a DEVCONFG.EXE
EZCONFIG IN$            88  09-08-86  8:00a EZCONFIG.IN$
EZCONFIG EXE        17,434  09-08-86  8:00a EZCONFIG.EXE
EZCONFIG MSG        12,009  09-08-86  8:00a EZCONFIG.MSG
MAKEDISC BAT         2,635  09-08-86  8:00a MAKEDISC.BAT
UPDATSYS PRG           845  09-08-86  8:00a UPDATSYS.PRG
UPDATSYS BAT           770  09-08-86  8:00a UPDATSYS.BAT
UPDATAPS BAT         2,752  09-08-86  8:00a UPDATAPS.BAT
        29 file(s)        170,496 bytes
         0 dir(s)          16,384 bytes free

So, here's a checklist:
  • Make sure that you're using real MS-DOS; a DOS prompt window under Windows will not do.
  • These images require DS2D (double density) 3.5" media--you can cover over the density hole in HD media and it should work, but unmodified HD media will not.
  • If you're using a DISKETTE.CFG file with TeleDisk, make sure it reflects your configuration.
  • The Series 1 HP150 format is a bit strange in that each track has 16 256-byte and one 128-byte sector. Some floppy controllers will choke on the 128-byte MFM sector. If in doubt, try another system.
Hope this helps!
 
Hi
As mention, most times you can get by using HD disk.
It is recommended that you magnetically erase or
use fresh new, unformatted, disk.
When writing as an HD, it writes deeper into the
surface than for the DD. This means that if it has
new stuff on the surface the old data will create noise
that makes reading difficult.
One should degauss (sp?) with an AC field but I've had
good success with wiping the edge of a strong magnet
on the surface and rotating the disk. Be careful to
not ding our scrape the surface. If the magnet is strong
enough, a thin layer of tape on the magnet is a good idea.
As mentioned, cover the HD hole with tape or something
when writing the disk. Many drives will fail to recognize the
720K signal from the pin but work fine if the hole indicates
it is a 720K disk. Some controllers don't generate the
720K signal as well.
It has been suggested that using HD disk might lose
data over time. I've not seen this happen in at least
5 years of doing this. But then, I rarely use the inner
track as I rarely write a full disk.
Dwight
 
Dwight, I don't think the HD drive does not write deeper into the media than the DD does, principally because the HD media coating is only half as thick! (0.9 vs. 1.8 microns).

The principal differences between HD and DD media are the particle size (HD uses smaller particles), magnetic coercivity (HD uses higher coercivity coatings and so needs a higher current to saturate it), loading (HD uses lower loading) and, as mentioned, coating thickness--and composition (DD is ferrite; HD is cobalt).

I've never needed to degauss HD media when using it as DD. The difference in coercivity is fairly small (650 Oe vs. 720 Oe). Nothing like the difference in 5.25" media, or the difference between HD and ED media.

If you do need to deguass, the best tool is a videotape eraser. You can still find hand-held units lingering about for wiping VHS carts.
 
Last edited:
Many thanks Chuck for checking out the image for me , and thanks Dwight for the techincal stuff! this has proven my toshiba laptop running win 98/dos,
is not upto making disks from ss/dd images, but it will make disks from ds/dd images,???I will now have to dig out one of my older machines that has a 1.44mb floppy drive, and running pure dos,not so easy as most of the early machines I have are using 720k drives, I guess saving the images on a 1.44mb disk /drive, means, I will need the same drive to read the images to the hard drive, I do have an early Zenith, running dos 6.21, be interesting now to see if things work.

thanks again, I'll let you know the outcome...........Harry
 
harry said:
I will now have to dig out one of my older machines that has a 1.44mb floppy drive, and running pure dos,not so easy as most of the early machines I have are using 720k drives, I guess saving the images on a 1.44mb disk /drive, means, I will need the same drive to read the images to the hard drive, I do have an early Zenith, running dos 6.21, be interesting now to see if things work.
Click to expand...

No, a 720K drive should be fine even with "taped over" HD media. No need to change drives yet.
 
I just spent the evening trying to make the disk I need, but not with good results, the zenith running dos 6.21 ,with a 1.44mb floppy drive, did not throw up any errors at all while writing the new tracks, but it sure took a long time!when I tried it in the HP 150 it was not reconised? I dug out my compaq III
running dos 3.3, again with a 1.44mb floppy drive, loaded everything as before,
but this time teledisk came back with errors on ever track it was trying to write?
same problem as my newer toshiba was giving? I guess it has to be down to the
3.5 floppy controller and drive, these ss/dd hp150 disk images seem to be fussy on what can reproduce the image. I can't follow how you managed to read
the disk you made, when you say you used the HP 150 sys dos driver,? how can I do this , to check the disk 's I have made? ....... Harry
 
Okay, here's the HP150.SYS driver for the Series 1. Just install it with a DEVICE= in your CONFIG.SYS file for DOS and a drive letter will be assigned. It should find your 3.5" disk automatically.

Note that you can format and read and write diskettes, but you can't make a /S system diskette that will work as the HP150's hardware interface is very different from a PC's. However the Series 2 device driver for the HP150 {b]will[/b] create a system diskette--the Series 1 was old news by the time that I wrote that one, so it wasn't worthwhile adding the capability to the Series 1 driver.

I suspect it's the 128 byte "extra" sector on normal HP150 diskettes that's fouling you up. Give me a chance to make an image without the extra sector and you should be just fine.
 

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Thanks for doing this Chuck, tonight my Zenith is refusing to reconise any disks
in the 3.5 floppy drive,maybe it just needs a bit of head cleaning, hope so, just what I don't need is more hassle, I still have an early Toshiba, with the 720k floppy drive, I will have to dig it out and see if my luck changes. I have saved the image for the dos driver , thanks for that, be good to see if there is any thing on the disks I made. I'll let you know if things work out. ..... Harry
 
One of the problems with many PCs is that the power supply fan applies negative pressure to the interior of the case (air flow is 'out"). Unfortunately this results in all sorts of dust and grime getting sucked into the floppy drives, even thos with a "flap" that's supposed to prevent this.

Some alcohol on a swab applied to the drive heads should help a lot.

If you're in the US, I can always make up a set of floppies and ship them to you. I still have a few hundred DS2D blank floppies.
 
help with diskettes

help with diskettes

I wanna do a complete re-create of the Tandy 1000HX DOS 2.11 and the Graphical DeskMate program.

I found images of the disks, supposedly, but I've failed to attempt to try to build the floppies myself for fear of failure.

Plus, how could I get something like this to boot under something like DOSBOX? I don't think a non-TANDY-computer-(even installed down to DOS), would run, of course without the TGA graphics card or the Tandy 3voice chip.

I hear you CAN boot from images in DOSBOX, but I dunno how, haven't found good info on how-to, so, if I get you the images I have, (or relocate again and send), could you help me get them created as real 720K diskettes again?

I LOVED the GUI/OS under DESKMATE graphical interface, and all the fun toys like the 16 color image editor, the music (3 voice) editor WITH instruments,.. I would LOVE to have all that back again.

If getting it to run under DOSBOX is not very easy or even if it's not possible to do, do you have any recommendations on how to get it to run under some other method of TRUE TANDY TGA & 3VOICECHIP EMULATION?

I would LOVE your help with this.. PLEEEEASE..



Lock de la Lion aka Kiyote Wolf
kiyotewolf at gmail dot com
kiyotewolf at hotmail dot com
kiyotewolfe at yahoo dot com
kikibearbear at gmail dot com
 
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