[Coco] Having problems formatting 720K floppys

[Shawn M. Hedgecorth]

Thanks for the info. After I entered the dmode commands (on the command
line), format worked just fine, but I could not access the disk that I
booted from in that drive without changing the dns value back to 3. The same
basic thing happened when I put the commands in startup. I also went ahead
and used dmode on the device descriptor files in the
NITROS9/6809L2/MODULES/RBF directory so that I could try to make a custom
boot disk. What I end up with is an unbootable disk. When I type DOS at the
OK prompt, I get the white boot screen, but when it gets to the point where
it would normally change to the welcome screen, the system hangs.

After trying numerous times, to get a working custom boot disk, without
success, I decided to try using the drivers/descriptors form the V03.02.01
disks that I have. I replaced all the files in the RBF directory, made the
necessary changes in the standard.bl file (to use CC3Disk), ran the mb
script, and now I have a working custom boot disk. 

That leads me to a few more questions. First, is there any potential problem
with using the 03.02.01 drivers/descriptors with the 03.02.04 release?
Second, what is the functional difference between these versions or where
can I find this information? Third, why is the track density important for
3.5" drives? I understand the importance on 5.25" drives, because there are
40 and 80 track drives, and setting the density to 96 tpi on 80 track drives
allows you to read 40 track disks by double stepping the head for each
track. I was under the impression that all 3.5" drives were 135 tpi though. 

Thanks for any insight you may have.

Shawn


-----Original Message-----
From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On
Behalf Of Boisy G. Pitre
Sent: Mar. 25, 2005 8:05
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [Coco] Having problems formatting 720K floppys


Shawn,

The 3.5" descriptors were built incorrectly for the V03.02.04 release 
of NitrOS-9.  Try putting these commands in your startup:

dmode /d0 dns=1
dmode /dd dns=1

That should clear up the problem.


--
Boisy G. Pitre
E-Mail: boisy at boisypitre.com
Mobile: (337) 781-3997
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