6 Jun
2007
6 Jun
'07
6:34 a.m.
I have three 5.25" drives (of currently unknown
functionality) which I
could use.
Drives of known functionality will usually give more meaningful TESTFDC
results.
One is a DEC RX33, one is a Tandon TM75-8 and the last
one
is a Sankyo (or that might just be the motor manufacturer :-)). I also
have whatever is sitting in my main machine, but I'm not keen to
drag that out just foir fun! I also have a few 1.44MB 3.5" drives, but
they've not been used in quite some time, so heaven knows what state
they are in.
I would recommend testing the drives on a known good system first.
Unless you know the drives are good, you can't trust the TESTFDC
results (A failure could be indicative of a bad drive, not a FDC
limitation).
So what do I need to do to extract the maximum useful
information
about these motherboards (aside, that is, from checking that they
are not already on the list :-))? And exactly what media will I need?
Should I test both 3.5" and 5.25" (I've not tried the 300/360 mod yet;
I may do in the future, but for now I'd just like to get some
testing done)?
To completely test the FDC, you need to check Single, Double and
Double/128 at each of 250, 300 and 500 kbps rates. These are
represented in a standard PC at:
250 = 5.25 low-density drive only, 3.5" low-density diskette
300 = 5.25 Low-density diskette in high-density drive
500 = 5.25" or 2.5" high-density diskette
So to check all possible data rates without a 300/360 modded drive,
you need to run two tests - either the 5.25" LD and HD drives, or a
5.25" HD and 3.5" drive.
Anything to watch out for?
As noted above, make sure your drives are working - Ideally they should
have recently passed the tests you are about to run when installed in
a system with a known good FDC.
Any particular version of DOS recommended (I have 6.2?
kicking around,
would FreeDOS do if that is easier to find)?
It shouldn't matter - TESTFDC talks to the hardware directly. Just don't
have any TSR's or other resident software loaded which might touch the
FDC (best to run under bare DOS).
Dave
--
dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html