IBM PC XT external floppy drive and Disk Copy Fast \ VOGONS

IBM PC XT external floppy drive and Disk Copy Fast

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First post, by mikeyp

Posted on 2022-01-12, 11:25

mikeyp Offline

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I have an IBM PC XT 5160 (See here if you want to see it in action: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comment … with_a_true_pc/)

The main floppy drive is a little unreliable. I believe I need to spend some time cleaning and oiling the rails and stepper motor bearings but that's a job for another day.

I've obtained and got working a IBM 4869 external 360k floppy drive. I've configured it by putting the following in config.sys: DEVICE=C:\DOS\DRIVER.SYS /d:3

It appears as drive F (C, D and E are partitions on the CF card and MFM HDD), can read, write, format disks etc. but I am unable to use Disk Copy Fast to write disk images. I just throws an error saying the "diskette drive is not ready".

Have I missed something here or is this an issue with it being controlled by the driver rather than the BIOS? Internally the switches are set to 1 drive because of the known issues with XT-IDE adapters and the switches set to 3/4 diskette drives.

Thanks in advance.

Michael

Reply 1 of 10, by maxtherabbit

Posted on 2022-01-12, 15:21

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I'm not familiar with Disk Copy Fast, but it is very common for software that writes directly to the FDC to be hardcoded to only support A and B drives

Reply 2 of 10, by rmay635703

Posted on 2022-01-12, 15:29

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Wierd, mine became drive B in my 5150 and I had to use drvprm because it was a 720k 3.5

What is drive B in your system?

Reply 3 of 10, by mikeyp

Posted on 2022-01-12, 15:40

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It was a gotek floppy emulator but since adding a full height drive, that's had to come out. That will be external soon enough once the parts for the cable, DB-37 connector etc. come.

Reply 4 of 10, by maxtherabbit

Posted on 2022-01-12, 15:46

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Let me clarify, it doesn't matter what the logical drive letters are. Only the unit numbers on the FDC interface (0 and 1)

The 4869 is hardwired to always be unit 3

Reply 5 of 10, by mikeyp

Posted on 2022-01-12, 15:53

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Hmm. Perhaps I've left it configured for 2 drives and I need to double check the switches internally. If it's set as 1 diskette drive, should it configure as B in DOS?

Reply 6 of 10, by mikeyp

Posted on 2022-01-12, 20:20

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Ok, it was configured for 2 drives, but configuring switches 7 and 8 on per single drive in the manual doesn't change the situation. The main floppy drive now answers to both A: and B: and the external drive still configures and responds as F:.

Reply 7 of 10, by maxtherabbit

Posted on 2022-01-13, 15:13

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mikeyp wrote on 2022-01-12, 20:20:

Ok, it was configured for 2 drives, but configuring switches 7 and 8 on per single drive in the manual doesn't change the situation. The main floppy drive now answers to both A: and B: and the external drive still configures and responds as F:.

nothing you do with the switches will change your situation, that piece of software is simply not going to work that that drive

Reply 8 of 10, by weedeewee

Posted on 2022-01-13, 15:50

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switches 7 & 8 ?
as on the dip switch on the mainboard of your computer?
as in the two switches that tell the bios how many floppy drives the computer should have?
...

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Reply 9 of 10, by mikeyp

Posted on 2022-01-14, 10:45

mikeyp Offline

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maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-01-13, 15:13:

nothing you do with the switches will change your situation, that piece of software is simply not going to work that that drive

Actually it does work! I realised when you said it was hardwired to always be unit 3, i.e. the 4th drive, that DCF was mapping F: to unit 2, the 3rd drive. Selecting drive 4 as below worked! Don't know why I didn't try it before.

weedeewee wrote on 2022-01-13, 15:50:
switches 7 & 8 ? as on the dip switch on the mainboard of your computer? as in the two switches that tell the bios how many fl […]
Show full quote

switches 7 & 8 ?
as on the dip switch on the mainboard of your computer?
as in the two switches that tell the bios how many floppy drives the computer should have?
...

Correct. Switches 7-8 need to be configured for 1 drive in my system as there is 1 internal drive. There is a known issue with configuring it for 3-4 drives when the XT-IDE is present. Thankfully the above line in config.sys gets around that.

Reply 10 of 10, by maxtherabbit

Posted on 2022-01-14, 15:29

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mikeyp wrote on 2022-01-14, 10:45:
Actually it does work! I realised when you said it was hardwired to always be unit 3, i.e. the 4th drive, that DCF was mapping F […]
Show full quote

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-01-13, 15:13:

nothing you do with the switches will change your situation, that piece of software is simply not going to work that that drive

Actually it does work! I realised when you said it was hardwired to always be unit 3, i.e. the 4th drive, that DCF was mapping F: to unit 2, the 3rd drive. Selecting drive 4 as below worked! Don't know why I didn't try it before.

image0 (2).jpeg

weedeewee wrote on 2022-01-13, 15:50:
switches 7 & 8 ? as on the dip switch on the mainboard of your computer? as in the two switches that tell the bios how many fl […]
Show full quote

switches 7 & 8 ?
as on the dip switch on the mainboard of your computer?
as in the two switches that tell the bios how many floppy drives the computer should have?
...

Correct. Switches 7-8 need to be configured for 1 drive in my system as there is 1 internal drive. There is a known issue with configuring it for 3-4 drives when the XT-IDE is present. Thankfully the above line in config.sys gets around that.

lmao I stand corrected, sort of

wish you had posted that screenshot in the OP I would have told you straight away 😀

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