Rev F problems

HxC Floppy Emulator on IBM PC and compatible support
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tenox
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Dec 23, 2012 5:12 am

Rev F problems

Post by tenox »

Hi All,

I have just received HxC SD revision F from Lotharek. I have hooked it up to a 286 machine, the emulator is set to ID0A. The ribbon is connected correctly and I have tried reversing it. I have converted a most standard MS-DOS boot floppy to HFE format. I'm unable to boot in any way I try. I also tried several other operating systems, QNX and Xenix. Nothing will boot. The BIOS does a floppy seek and I can see it reading some sectors. But all the different operating systems fail to boot. I have another, very crappy emulator from Gotek but I'm able to boot all the oses from it but not from HxC.

Also one hint, when I enter to the BIOS to set up the floppy disk it always detects it at drive B and 1.2 MB size.

Any ideas?

Many thanks,
Antoni

Jeff
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Re: Rev F problems

Post by Jeff »

Hi,
tenox wrote: Also one hint, when I enter to the BIOS to set up the floppy disk it always detects it at drive B and 1.2 MB size.
This look like a bad jumper setting.
It's a PC, so the right setting is probably ID2-A if the floppy cable is not twisted or ID1-A if the cable is twisted.
Change the jumper and retry to detect the floppy drive: it should be at drive a.
(are you trying to replace an 5"1/4 disk drive or a 3"1/2 disk drive ?)

Just to be sure that all is ok on the hardware side, you can try to boot on this ms dos 6.22 image :
https://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_driv ... Dos622.hfe (1.44MB / HD image)

Which kind of file image are using to generate your HFE file ?

If you are trying to dump some disk, please use the lastest software version :
https://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_driv ... 2_beta.zip

Also before exporting HFE, you must set the right floppy interface mode :
Menu Settings -> HFE File interface mode. In your case choose "IBM PC 1.44MB" or "IBM PC 720KB" according to your disk image type.
This settings may be changed on the floppy emulator : remove the sdcard and press the middle button, you will have access to the embedded menu to change floppy interface mode and other settings.

tenox
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Dec 23, 2012 5:12 am

Re: Rev F problems

Post by tenox »

Okay this worked! Really appreciate your help! I was able to boot several operating system. Although I had to set it to ID3A to work. Let's assume it's my weird 286 machine.

Answering your question I'm trying to replace both 3.5" and 5.25" drive, but not at the same time. I have a large collection of disk images and some are 1.44MB and some 1.2MB.

So when converting 1.44MB I can use "IBM PC 1.44MB" setting for interface mode. But which one do I use for a PC 1.2MB 5.25" drive?

I have a couple of disk images (which do work in Qemu/Bochs just fine) which when loaded with Load Floppy function come up with funny settings. For instance coh310.img reports 64 tracks and 8 (!) sides. It's a standard 1.2MB floppy. http://www.tenox.tc/get/coh310.img

Installa.img which is a very standard OS/2 v1.x boot floppy reports 576 tracks and 1 side. Which is incorrect as it its most standard 1.44 MB disk. http://www.tenox.tc/get/INSTALLA.DSK

So I attribute these to the conversion software and not the emulator itself.

I have tried converting these using "Load Raw Image" but failed so far. When I load coh310.img via raw and use correct settings for 1.2MB floppy and I set my floppy disk to 360k in the BIOS it will load the boot prompt. But then it fails to load the rest. When floppy is set to 1.2 MB it will just fail to recognize it.

Can you help getting these disk images to work correctly with HxC?

Thanks a lot!!

Jeff
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Re: Rev F problems

Post by Jeff »

Hi,

just redownload the last version :

https://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_driv ... 2_beta.zip

and change the .dsk extension to .img

tenox
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Dec 23, 2012 5:12 am

Re: Rev F problems

Post by tenox »

Thanks a lot for the answer. What about Coherent floppy? I tried to convert it in many different ways, but it just won't work. Would you be able to take a quick look at it? Really appreciate your help!

http://www.tenox.tc/get/coh310.img

Jeff
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Re: Rev F problems

Post by Jeff »

tenox wrote:Thanks a lot for the answer. What about Coherent floppy? I tried to convert it in many different ways, but it just won't work. Would you be able to take a quick look at it? Really appreciate your help!

http://www.tenox.tc/get/coh310.img
Have you tried it with the lastest version (link above) ?
Just drag&drop the image on the software, then export.

(Think to clear your browser cache before downloading the software...

https://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_driv ... 2_beta.zip

)

tenox
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Dec 23, 2012 5:12 am

Re: Rev F problems

Post by tenox »

It did work like magic! Thanks so much for your support!
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