[Coco] Re: NitrOS-9 V03.02.01 Release

[Frederick D Provoncha]

On Fri, 21 May 2004 10:08:11 +0000 (UTC) Rodney_Hamilton at GBRonline.com
(Rodney V Hamilton) writes:
> In article <20040520.230456.1004.1.elderpav at juno.com>, 
> elderpav at juno.com says...
> >
> >> The version of DSKINI.EXE probably is OK. There have been issues 
> in the 
> >> past using 5 1/4" drives that require BIOS adjustments. Since I 
> use a 
> >> 3.5" drive on both PC and Coco, I've not paid too much attention 
> to BIOS 
> >> settings. Do a Google newsgroup search for this.
> >> 
> >> My suggestion would be to get a 3.5" drive and install it on the 
> Coco.
> >> 
> >> By the way, what do you see on your 5.25' drive when you boot 
> into OS-9 
> >> with a different system disk attempt to read the problem disk?
> 
> The June 8 2003 DSKINI.EXE is indeed the latest version.  The main 
> change
> from previous versions is that it formats ALL the tracks even if the 
> disk
> image file is less than the full size.  If your 5.25-inch drive is a 
> 360K
> unit, there may be a problem with DSKINI - a note on Jeff Vavasour's 
> site
> suggests telling the BIOS it is a 720K unit instead.  The 3.5-inch 
> drive
> should work fine since no track-stepping tricks are needed.
> 
> >I forgot to mention that I already have a 3 1/2" drive installed on 
> the
> >Coco. So why am I using 5 1/4" disks? Because I haven't had any 
> success
> >using DSKINI to transfer the images to a 3 1/2" disk, either. Even 
> if I
> >do succeed in executing the command without getting a write error, 
> the
> >resulting disk is unreadable on the Coco. I get "Error 249 - Wrong 
> Type"
> 
> Fred, have you looked at LSN0?  The NitrOS-9 DD80 image has the 
> DD.FMT
> byte at offset $0010 set to $07 (96tpi DSDD) but your drive 
> descriptor
> for the 3.5 drive is probably still set to DNS=1 (48tpi DSDD).  To 
> fix
> it, try setting the DNS value to 3 (eg: DMODE /D1 DNS=3) and see if 
> you
> can now read the 3.5 disk.  Alternately, you can patch LSN0 on the 
> 3.5
> disk and change the DD.FMT value from $07 to $03 - this is what I do 
> on
> my disks so I can read 3.5-inch 720K disks with the default /D1.
> 
> If I change DD.FMT to $02, I can read the 80tk DSDD image in the 
> JV/JC
> emulators, and even boot from it with my double-sided boot patch.
> 
> >When I boot OS-9 using another boot disk and then analyze the 
> problem
> >disk, I can DIR the root directory and the DEFS directory, but I 
> get a
> >seek error when I try DIR-ing the SYS directory. When I tried 
> DIR-ing the
> >CMDS directory, it gave me a 'no permission' error, and when I 
> checked
> >the attributes, CMDS is listed as a file, not a directory! 
> Obviously the
> >disk is garbled, due to a faulty DSKINI operation I imagine.
> >
> >Fred Provoncha
> 
> Again, check the LSN0 settings - it's almost certainly a density 
> setting
> mismatch between the disk and the descriptor.
> 
> I hope this helps.
> 
> Rodney Hamilton
> 

I will try that and let you know. It'll take a few days though, as I'm in
the process of moving. Thank you for the suggestions!

Fred Provoncha