[Coco] Booting OS9 on my CoCo 3

[Arthur Flexser]

...or really, any track from a disk that wasn't written on that drive, if
misalignment is the problem.

Art

On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 3:43 AM, Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu> wrote:

> Oops, I forgot that we're talking about a 3.5" drive.  But still, the fact
> that you can format successfully under RSDOS only indicates that the first
> 35 tracks are okay.  If the drive is out of alignment, it could be having
> trouble with tracks beyond the first 35.
>
> Art
>
> On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 3:36 AM, Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu> wrote:
>
>> Is it possible that you've configured OS-9 to expect a 40-track disk, but
>> that the floppy drive you hooked up is physically not capable of 40-track
>> operation? Some of the older RS drives could only handle something like 36
>> tracks.  The fast seeking could be the sound of the drive vainly trying to
>> access an upper track.
>>
>> Art
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 3:11 AM, Dave Philipsen <dave at davebiz.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Ok, so it's been a REAL long time since I booted OS9 on my real CoCo 3
>>> from a floppy disk.  Like almost thirty years.  So I picked up a used FD501
>>> controller from eBay awhile back and I just now hooked up a 3.5" floppy to
>>> it.  I can format a floppy and I can save/load programs from it.  But when
>>> I try to boot an old disk (probably 30 yrs old) I get the familiar "OS9
>>> BOOT" screen and then the floppy does a seek at what sounds like a faster
>>> step rate and then it does nothing.  Frozen with "OS9 BOOT" on the screen
>>> and the floppy is still selected with the motor running.
>>>
>>> This is a very old boot disk that I labeled "OS9 Level II System Master
>>> with ramdisk".  My old setup was a CoCo 3 with 512K and a multipak and one
>>> of the old full-size floppy controllers and an RS232 Pak.  My new setup is
>>> a CoCo 3 with 128K, no MPI,  the FD501, and a 63C09.
>>>
>>> I've got some 5.25" OS9 disks too but I don't currently have a 5.25"
>>> drive so I'm hoping to get things worked out with the 3.5" drive. It may be
>>> that the floppy is just so old it's lost some of its retentivity but I just
>>> thought I'd put it out there to see if anyone has an idea.  Maybe I'm
>>> missing something obvious.  The FD501 does not seem to work at hi-speed.
>>> Could that be the problem?
>>>
>>> Dave
>>>
>>>
>>> --
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>>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
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>>>
>>
>>
>