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8088 turbo button problem

If they work at 4.77, I don't think cleaning the heads will help.
I prefer to use a cleaning diskette, but cotton-buds + isopropyl alcohol are a common method (if you need to do it one day)

I've heard this issue mentioned somewhere before but can't quite remember where - hopefully someone who knows more than I do posts up.
 
Did you write those disks with a 1.2mb drive perhaps? That is not reliable. If you freshly format the disks in the 360k drive, and then immediately write the files to the disks in the 1.2mb drive, that sometimes works.

The easiest way to clean the drive is with a drive cleaning disk. You can find those on e-bay from time to time.
 
I used a 360 Kb drive to write the disks. In addition I just replaced the drive with a different 360 kb drive that works in other PCs and the problem remains when the turbo is on.
 
By the way, when I changed the floppy drive I wrote down the model of my hard disk that is not working. It's seagate model ST-151, can you tell me how to format and partition it, through debug perhaps?
 
The Generic XT BIOS has a "flag" to tell the floppy to operate only at 4.77MHz or at turbo speed... I wonder if it's possible that your BIOS is hardcoded to only operate the drives correctly at 4.77MHz?
 
skouris33 said:
By the way, when I changed the floppy drive I wrote down the model of my hard disk that is not working. It's seagate model ST-151, can you tell me how to format and partition it, through debug perhaps?
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We really need to know what the make and model of your hard disk controller card is.
A photo of it should enable us to identify it.
 
My hard disk details are: seagate model ST-151, 3.5'' 40 MB MFM HD with a 34 Pin and 20 Pin cable, WD standard 8 bit controller. Is there a programme for low level format other than debug that fits in 360 KB floppy? I will really appreciate this. (When I use debug g=c800:5 and finally press y for formatting with fixed values I get error---completion code 20) Thanks!
 
skouris33 said:
My hard disk details are: seagate model ST-151, 3.5'' 40 MB MFM HD with a 34 Pin and 20 Pin cable, WD standard 8 bit controller. Is there a programme for low level format other than debug that fits in 360 KB floppy? I will really appreciate this. (When I use debug g=c800:5 and finally press y for formatting with fixed values I get error---completion code 20) Thanks!
Click to expand...

Check your 20 pin data cable is around the right way at both ends (should be a stripe on the cable - it goes to pin 1) and is connected to the correct connector on the HDD controller. If the data cable isn't connected correctly, the drive will respond fine but fail to actually read or write data. On at least one of my WD controllers - this gave an error 20 like you described.

SSTOR is fantastic (seriously the best low level format tool). But if you're using "dynamic configuration" e.g. entering custom cylinders/heads, I'd just keep accessing the ROM via debug - because it'll write configuration blocks on track 0 so the controller knows what's there next time it powers up. If hard drive type is a default, or is set by jumpers, then either is fine.
 
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I connected the data cable the other way around and when I restarted the PC the HDD light turned on (on the tower) and stayed on while the light on drive periodically turned on and off. For a moment I thought I fixed it but another problem appeared. Now whenever push a button on the keyboard I hear a bip sound and it is not working. It happened to me before and I had fixed this by connecting another keyboard (the characters I press with this keyboard doesn't correspond to the actual) and then connecting the keyboard I use. Is my computer dead? Unfortunatelly with this problem I couldn't boot dos and try if my PC sees the hard disk drive with the reversed cables. Please help me
 
The cables *need* to be connected so that *both* are oriented the same, i.e., the red stripe must be on the same side of both cables. It sounds like the cables were on correctly in the original position. Go back to that and run the diagnostics in SpeedStor.
 
Does your keyboard have a switch for XT/AT? If so, make sure it is set appropriately. Also if the keyboard DIN socket is worn you might have to fiddle with the plug a bit as you plug it in to get it to make proper contact.
 
the keyboard has a switch for 3 positions: A X S. The position in which it was working before is S, but I also tried the other 2 and it is still not working
 
When the machine starts, does it give you an error like 301 followed by a couple of characters?

(Keyboard should be set to X or S - I'm guessing "S" is "Sense")
 
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