Shadow Lord
Veteran Member
I'll take that guarantee as I have been beating my head against the wall with those default settings for the past week.
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Trouble w/ CompatiCard IV and Teac FD-235J
- Thread starter Shadow Lord
- Start date
I'll take that guarantee as I have been beating my head against the wall with those default settings for the past week.
Shadow Lord
Veteran Member
Okay,
So good news/bad news:
Good news: Setting the jumpers per your fax's recommendations I've got the drive up and running. I still need to use the BIOS from the CCIV but w/ the drive jumpered as above and BIOS enabled the drive becomes accessible. A couple of observations:
1. The Everex LCD panel is still disabled since the BIOS routines are replaced w/ the ones from the CCIV.
2. The M2-ABIOS still recognizes the drive as 1.44 and will not work with the drive properly. However, setting the drive to 2.88 manually in config.sys allows for similar behavior to the CCIV BIOS.
Bad News: Lots of weird incompatibilities. For example formatting an ED diskette using format a: produces the correct format. The format is completed and the disk is perfectly usable. However, if I was to format the same disk using format a: /s I get a report at the end indicating over 4 GIGABYTES of bad sectors (even though the free space on the disk is correct). This is not limited to ED disks as a std 720KB disk produced the same result and the same error. These disks will not boot - indicating that the command processor is missing if you attempt to boot from them. However, formatting the same disk and ten transferring system files using the "sys" command produces a perfectly good disk which boots properly. The same behavior was noted w/ 2M-ABIOS loaded both w/ and w/o CCIV BIOS enabled.
Dir, copy, move, etc. commands seem to work fine on the formatted disk. So what am i missing? Is this a shortcoming of DOS format or do I need to use driveparm or driver.sys?
As always thanks for the help Chuck!
So good news/bad news:
Good news: Setting the jumpers per your fax's recommendations I've got the drive up and running. I still need to use the BIOS from the CCIV but w/ the drive jumpered as above and BIOS enabled the drive becomes accessible. A couple of observations:
1. The Everex LCD panel is still disabled since the BIOS routines are replaced w/ the ones from the CCIV.
2. The M2-ABIOS still recognizes the drive as 1.44 and will not work with the drive properly. However, setting the drive to 2.88 manually in config.sys allows for similar behavior to the CCIV BIOS.
Bad News: Lots of weird incompatibilities. For example formatting an ED diskette using format a: produces the correct format. The format is completed and the disk is perfectly usable. However, if I was to format the same disk using format a: /s I get a report at the end indicating over 4 GIGABYTES of bad sectors (even though the free space on the disk is correct). This is not limited to ED disks as a std 720KB disk produced the same result and the same error. These disks will not boot - indicating that the command processor is missing if you attempt to boot from them. However, formatting the same disk and ten transferring system files using the "sys" command produces a perfectly good disk which boots properly. The same behavior was noted w/ 2M-ABIOS loaded both w/ and w/o CCIV BIOS enabled.
Dir, copy, move, etc. commands seem to work fine on the formatted disk. So what am i missing? Is this a shortcoming of DOS format or do I need to use driveparm or driver.sys?
As always thanks for the help Chuck!
Chuck(G)
25k Member
@SL, you'll have to research that one for yourself--off the top of my head, I don't recall such behavior. in the /s argument.
As far as the Everex LCD goes, again, that's an issue I know nothing about. Did Everex ever produce a later BIOS for the box with 2.88M support? What's the FDC chip on your hard disk controller? There were some Adaptec boards that used the DP8473, which is capable of 2.88M.
As far as the Everex LCD goes, again, that's an issue I know nothing about. Did Everex ever produce a later BIOS for the box with 2.88M support? What's the FDC chip on your hard disk controller? There were some Adaptec boards that used the DP8473, which is capable of 2.88M.
Shadow Lord
Veteran Member
Chuck,
I'll try to mess around w/ driver.sys and/or driveparm and see if I can get it to work properly w/ format. It is rather strange.
The Everex LCD I don't expect to work as the BIOS routines are replaced. This is the last version of the Everex files I have found. I will look into the CFG file for the motherboard and see if I can edit it to allow for a 2.88MB drive. However, I suspect the relevant bits are in the OVL file and not editable.
As for the Adaptec controller I have a 2740 not a 2742 so I don't believe it supports any FDD. Or is the support there and there is just no connector?
EDIT: Seems as if DRIVEPARM is what I would need to work with as driver.sys does not apply to my situation. I'll try it out and see what happens. I would really like to get this working. In case I can not, would I set the drive back to the "default" jumper settings to use it in a later system that has 2.88MB BIOS support built in? Thanks!
I'll try to mess around w/ driver.sys and/or driveparm and see if I can get it to work properly w/ format. It is rather strange.
The Everex LCD I don't expect to work as the BIOS routines are replaced. This is the last version of the Everex files I have found. I will look into the CFG file for the motherboard and see if I can edit it to allow for a 2.88MB drive. However, I suspect the relevant bits are in the OVL file and not editable.
As for the Adaptec controller I have a 2740 not a 2742 so I don't believe it supports any FDD. Or is the support there and there is just no connector?
EDIT: Seems as if DRIVEPARM is what I would need to work with as driver.sys does not apply to my situation. I'll try it out and see what happens. I would really like to get this working. In case I can not, would I set the drive back to the "default" jumper settings to use it in a later system that has 2.88MB BIOS support built in? Thanks!
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Chuck(G)
25k Member
DRIVEPARM only works if BIOS support for the media is there--it does not provide any direct-to-controller routines on its own. So YMMV.
The 2740 is the same as a 2742, but with the floppy components depopulated. So no help there.
If you wanted to move the drive into a later system, you'd leave the jumpers as they are now. The "default" jumpers are made to work with IBM PS/2 controller conventions (e.g. signal lines on odd-numbered positions that are normall grounded).
The 2740 is the same as a 2742, but with the floppy components depopulated. So no help there.
If you wanted to move the drive into a later system, you'd leave the jumpers as they are now. The "default" jumpers are made to work with IBM PS/2 controller conventions (e.g. signal lines on odd-numbered positions that are normall grounded).
Shadow Lord
Veteran Member
Right, I would still leave the BIOS on the CCIV enabled. I am hoping DRIVEPARM will resolve the format /s issues more than anything else....
Shadow Lord
Veteran Member
Well I finally had some time to mess around with this and I have pinpointed the problem: "format" is to blame partially. I am running MS DOS 6.22 w/ JPSoft 4DOS 7.50 loaded as the primary shell (using SHELL= in the config.sys). I recall running into this issue back in the day as well.
Basically, format does its thing, sets up the disk but then when it comes time to transfer the system files it copies 4DOS.COM to the floppy and renames it command.com. This produces the aforementioned errors and inability to boot. Interestingly enough using the "sys" command transfers the correct files. Replacing the wrong command.com w/ the correct one fixes the booting from disk issues. Also, if I format the disk w/o 4DOS running then the disk formats correctly, the system files are transfered and no errors are issued.
The question now is there anyway to prevent this from happening (i.e. can I use COMSPEC to make sure format transfers the correct command.com w/ the /s switch)?
Thanks to everyone, specially Chuck, for their help in upgrading the Mega Cube.
Chuck(G)
25k Member
Does SYS do anything more than copy files? Why not simply make up a batch command using COPY and ATTRIB?
Shadow Lord
Veteran Member
Chuck,
SYS works fine. It is "format /s" that fails. And yes the fix is: easy copy command.com over manually. However, I'd like to try and fix it permanently if possible (w/o uninstalling 4DOS).
SYS works fine. It is "format /s" that fails. And yes the fix is: easy copy command.com over manually. However, I'd like to try and fix it permanently if possible (w/o uninstalling 4DOS).
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Pro-Data
Member
Hey, just found this Thread about the Compaticard IV and was wondering if you guys have the Users Guide and Software or are you winging it trying to get this stuff to work?
Chuck(G)
25k Member
I have manuals and software. What exactly do you want to know?
chulofiasco
Experienced Member
Chuck(G)
25k Member
I may have an old schematic and jumper sheet that Teac FAX-ed me back in the day. I'll have to look, however.
chulofiasco
Experienced Member
Please let me know if you have some time. Thanks!
Chuck(G)
25k Member
I've got an old Teac FAX from 1992 that shows jumpers for the 235J-36xx; mine at the time was (and probably still is) a 3631. This is what I've found so far--apologies for the faded 30-year old thermal FAX...
chulofiasco
Experienced Member
Thanks!