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Dave Dunfields Imagedisk

Okay, Frank--I've taken some time out. Here's what I did.

I created a 3.5" HD boot diskette with DOS 6.22 and HIMEM.SYS, RAMDRIVE.SYS and a subdirectory called "TEST". In the TEST subdirectory, I placed IMD.COM (1.17), along with IMD.HLP and the two Model 4 image files. My CONFiG.SYS looks like this:

FILES 30
BUFFERS 8
DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=RAMDRIVE.SYS 2048 /E

...and an empty AUTOEXEC.BAT file, so I'm not prompted for the date and time.

I boot from that disk, COPY from TEST to whatever letter RAMDRIVE assigns, then change to that letter and run IMD. If I had 5.25" drive on a system, I used it as the target; otherwise I used a 3.5" 720K floppy as target. In all cases, single-step was off, except when a 1.2M drive was used (in that case, I also set 250K->300K). In every case, I was able to write either image to a floppy. Here are the systems I tested:

DFI 386/40 motherboard
ASUS P5A AMD K6 450
Supermicro dual P3 750MHz P6DGE
Amptron 8600 (Cyrix PR300+ Socket 7)
ABit IS7-E P4 Socket 478, 3.0 GHz
ASUS A7N266-VM (AMD Barton 2.1GHz)
Intel AN430HX P1-233MHz

All worked; about the only thing in common was that they all used VGA displays and PS/2-interface keyboards.

I've got lots more systems--all I have to do is hook them up. Note that I used a RAMdrive, so the hard disk controller wouldn't matter.
 
Hi Chuck, Ok did every thing you said in creating the boot disk etc. changed from USB KBD to PS/2 as well. Still no go! I'm cursed I think
 
I grabbed the first system I found with 3.5" and 5.25" HD drives (1.6G/512MB HP/Acer P4), created Dave's boot disk, ran IMD and made 1.2MB HD disks from the two 8" disk images (TDOS20B and TDOSCALC) that you sent me off-list; as expected, no issues whatsoever. I can't test them, but I did make images from them with no problems, so I assume they're OK.

IMD did complain about missing data on the third image, but that might be the way I set it up and the fact that I'm using an HD drive; in any case, no lock-ups.

Frank, I understand your frustration but since these tools work for pretty well everyone else there must be something about your particular hardware or the way you're using them. Dave has spent a lot of time and effort creating and adapting this suite, making it available to the rest of us at no charge, and even supporting it when necessary, and to say that it "sucks" just because you can't get it to work for some reason is doing Dave a great disservice.

I suggest you make a clean boot disk from Dave's most excellent diskette image and boot from that, instead of fooling around with who knows what (D)OS, drivers, autoexec/config.sys etc.
 
Mike, I think he did--see my post #41 and Frank's response. It's about the simplest thing you could imagine--boot from floppy, run from RAMdisk.

Frank, two additional questions--what's the same about the systems that you've tried this on? Additionally, have you tried re-downloading IMD 1.17?

I suspect that I can even get the thing to work on an XT clone I have here.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Mike, I think he did--see my post #41 and Frank's response. It's about the simplest thing you could imagine--boot from floppy, run from RAMdisk.
Click to expand...
What I meant was the ready-to-go image (BOOTIMD.ZIP) on Dave's site; it contains the IMD programs (1.18 ) as well as various other tools, CD/USB/NTFS drivers etc. as well as the XDISK program to create the disk itself; it provides a standard RAMdisk environment without having to fool with variables like files/buffers, config/autoexec, drivers etc.
 
Wouldn't that be a problem if Frank's already having issues writing floppies? Maybe not.

But his problem is not likely related to his run environment. I'm wondering if he uses the same AHA1542CF controller on all his setups. If he does, that's a suspect right there.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Wouldn't that be a problem if Frank's already having issues writing floppies? Maybe not.

But his problem is not likely related to his run environment. I'm wondering if he uses the same AHA1542CF controller on all his setups. If he does, that's a suspect right there.
Click to expand...
Well, it's a 3.5" disk and his problems seem to be related to the 5.25" drive; if he has trouble making the IMD disk itself with XDISK that might tell us something useful anyway. If we all use exactly the same environment and the same images and only he has a problem then it would sure seem to be a hardware issue, especially if it locks up all his computers...

But yeah, if he moves the controller every time that might explain it; why not just use the standard on-board FDC?
 
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That (bad drive) one would be easy to confirm--just extract the troublesome file to a 3.5" DS2D floppy. I've tried it using his problem files and it works just fine.
 
OK guys, Hardware wise on all systems nothing in common. I have tried to use onboard floppy no go. I have tried both 3.5 and 5.25 inch disks also no go.
Tested both drives using testfdc.com all tests single density, double density on 5.25 drive pass. Same on 3.5 drive single and double density pass except the /128 sector test on the 3.5. I will try that boot disk MikeS mentions.
 
Ok finally success! Used Dunfields bootdisk that MikeS recommended and it seems to be finally working. Just wonder why it does work? Well never look a gift horse in the mouth as a they say. But it seems to be running PC-DOS 7.1 vs. MS-DOS 6.22. Seems like it shouldn't make a difference to me. Thanks to all who helped. Especially Chuck and MikeS & Tezza. And yes saying the program sucks was just frustration on my part and I apologies to the author.
 
Frank, congratulations. But please bear with me--my curiosity won't let me drop this one yet.

On that disk you made after my example (not with XDISK) that refused to work, can you image that up and either post or email me a copy of the image? I'm really wondering what's strange about your setup such that it doesn't work on a number of systems.

I've got to find out what's going on for my own sanity.
 
It certainly shouldn't make a difference. I still have a hunch about this being a virus though. If you access the fresh new PC-DOS 7.1 disk, un-write protected, from your existing MS-DOS 6.22 install and it magically stops working, then you have likely uncovered a DOS virus. A virus trying to read or write to a boot sector or file wile IMD is running and the controller is in a modified state would be very likely to cause a lock-up similar to yours.

Since the fresh PC-DOS 7.1 disk works, you might also want to try downloading a fresh MS-DOS 6.22 boot disk from a reliable source, keep it write protected, and see if that also works. If it does, then "SYS"-ing your other media from the fresh disk and running FDISK /MBR on any hard drives might fix the problem.

Or it could be the laundry detergent. Who knows.

Edit: Yes, post an image of the disk first if possible.
 
Excellent! Glad we finally got that sorted out.

Like Chuck, I'm very curious about what the issue was; I don't think it's the DOS version but yeah, a virus is a possibility...

And FWIW I've expressed my frustration considerably more forcefully and politically incorrect at times like that ;-)
 
It's odd that at 1st I had DOS 5.0 on the C: drive and it wouldn't write. Then upgraded to DOS 6.22 and again same thing. I did try booting Dave's disk that was created and changed over to the directory where the Images are kept. Ran IMD from there and lock up as usual. So my thinking is it is not a DOS issue. Something else is going on here.

Now when I boot Dave's disk and change settings to no double step and then attempt a W)rite I use the images directory on the C: drive and it successfully writes the image. Also if I copy an .IMD image to the RAM disk that is created and run from there it also writes.
This is using the A: drive. I also created the TRS-80 Model 4 disk on the DSDD B: drive with success.

So what is the issue? I do not know. Hopefully this explanation isn't too confusing.

I'll ZIP up that image a little later.
 
I'm thinking virus as well. My guess would be that it has infected your executable files.
This would be resistant to a DOS upgrade and would explain why IMD works off a fresh disk, but not the copy on the hard drive.

Check if the IMD file on your HD is identical to the original still.

I did a youtube video last week using ImageDisk 1.18 and MS DOS 6.22 - no dramas.
 
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Ok so why does IMD format and erase files on disks without any problems? And why did the disk I created as suggested by Chuck not work?
 
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IMD is going directly to your hardware with port I/O, DMA and IRQ--nothing to get in the way. However, if it's accessing files, it uses DOS.

Maybe that's a clue.
 
Ok for the curious I scanned my Dos 6.22 upgrade images and no viruses found. I went ahead an created new disks from those images.
I then proceeded to copy the contents of my C: drive to my D: drive. I reformatted the C: drive and re-installed MS-DOS 6.22. I then copied back
only my image files and IMD back to the C: drive along with my TRS-80 emulators. And only copied the CD-ROM drivers from the DOS directory on the D: drive and wiped the D: clean (Formatted). So I now have a clean C: drive and guess what? Went to the IMD directory set the setting correctly for the disk image I was planning to use and LOCK-UP! just like before. So I think we can pretty much eliminate the Virus idea.
 
Frank,

I know you've tested the 5.25 drive and it seems ok, but have you tried substituting it with another? Could it be some weirdness with the drive itself? You might have covered this in the thread somewhere, but I'm having a little trouble following it all.

Tez
 
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