24 Mar
2000
24 Mar
'00
4:57 p.m.
Anyway, the machine works. I would like to format some
floppies and get a
restorable backup of the drive. The two floppies respond to DIR/Bad, and
Init/Bad as devices DU1 and DU2:. But I get 'bad sector in system area'
when I try to init. How do I low-level floppies?
Are your floppy drives RX33's or RX50's?
A RX50 is a two-drive-in-one unit, grey faceplate, two orange marks
showing you how to insert the bottom floppy in upside down. You can't
format a RX50 on your RQDX controller, you have to do it elsewhere. PUTR is
a common choice on a PC, get it at ftp.dbit.com.
A RX33 is a TEAC 5.25" HD disk drive. Put a 1.2Mbyte disk in, tell
it "FORMAT DU1:", and you'll have it formatted as a RX33. A RX33
can also read/write RX50's, but it can't format them on a DEC RQDX
controller.
Note that there are third-party Q-bus controllers that let you format RX50's,
and if you're running RT-11 5.7 you can use FORMAT/SINGLE on these
controllers to make RX50's.
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927