1.2Mb 5.25 inch Drive B - Intermittent General Failure Reading Drive

HxC Floppy Emulator on IBM PC and compatible support
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milbourne
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Joined: Tue Aug 18, 2020 12:05 am

1.2Mb 5.25 inch Drive B - Intermittent General Failure Reading Drive

Post by milbourne »

I have the Emulator running as Drive A 1.44mb with Dos 6.22 .img file loaded. It is set to DS0 with twisted cable and the Mode is set to IBM PC 1.44Mb. The Disk Browser is set to 3.5" 1.44mb DSHD FAT 12. The Emulator is connected to the end of a floppy drive cable, after the twist. The PC BIOS is set to have Drive A as a 1.44Mb 3.5" drive. This all works fine and I can boot the machine into Dos 6.22.

However, I have drive B in the BIOS set to 5.25" 1.2Mb, and I have that drive connected before the twist. It is a TEAC FD55-GFR, jumpered as D1.

After booting into DOS 6.22 from the Emulator, many of the things I attempt to do on Drive B come up with General Failure Reading Drive B, Abort, Retry or Fail. I tried another TEAC drive with the same result. I then swapped the Emulator for a Gotek drive that loads Dos 6.22 as Drive A instead. After this, drive B works fine.

So, something is wrong with the Emulator, or something is set wrong, but I have tried all sorts of things without success.

Has anyone come across this and, if so, have you found a solution?

milbourne
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Aug 18, 2020 12:05 am

Re: 1.2Mb 5.25 inch Drive B - Intermittent General Failure Reading Drive

Post by milbourne »

Okay, so I finally solved this issue.

To get it to work, I had to UNCHECK the twisted cable option in USB HxC Floppy Emulator Settings - even though the cable is twisted.

This is the fundamental point that has got it working. Why this should be necessary I don't know. I presume it's a bug.

The Emulator is attached to the end of the cable, after the twist. The 5.25 TEAC drive is attached before the twist.

The TEAC has D1 jumpered and the Gotek has DS1 selected in the USB HxC Floppy Emulator Settings and the Mode in there is set to Auto.

The BIOS on the PC is set to 3.5" 1.44Mb for Drive A and 5.25" 1.2Mb for Drive B.

In the DIsk Browser, the File System Type is set to 3.5" 1.44Mb DSHD FAT 12.

The Floppy File Image that is loaded is Dos6.22.img

Jeff
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Re: 1.2Mb 5.25 inch Drive B - Intermittent General Failure Reading Drive

Post by Jeff »

milbourne wrote:
Tue Aug 18, 2020 11:46 am
To get it to work, I had to UNCHECK the twisted cable option in USB HxC Floppy Emulator Settings - even though the cable is twisted.
I think that the bug is an user bug :
milbourne wrote:
Tue Aug 18, 2020 11:46 am
It is set to DS0 with twisted cable and the Mode is set to IBM PC 1.44Mb.
Only DS1 and DS2 settings are valid drive select for PC machines. DS0 & DS2 are motor-on signals...

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