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TexElec Quad-Flop (FDC) and Windows 95

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First post, by Vendest

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I recently build a computer with four floppy drives using the Quad-Flop ISA card.
While it took me some time to set it properly (due to lack of knowledge at my end), the controller card works wonders and allows me to manage multiple disk format on a single computer.
The card works fine in MS-DOS 6.22, however my initial set up was using Windows 95 (4.00.950 B) on a socket 7/MMX and I had hoped to keep using Win95 for ease of file management and other convenient features.

While Win95 loads, an error shows up as follows.
"While initializing device IOS :
Windows protection error. You need to restart your computer"

In Win95 "safe mode" all drives initialize later and therefore can work as intended.
I wonder if there a setting that can be adjusted to make the OS initialize correctly?

Thanks

Reply 2 of 21, by maxtherabbit

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You can remove the floppy disk controller from device manager to force win 9x to use the BIOS routines to access the floppy. This will bring your system to a grinding halt when the FDD is in use though. I don't recommend it.

Does this card have one or two FDC chips on it?

Reply 3 of 21, by Vendest

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I have tried with both settings enabled/disabled for PnP as I am not sure if the card is PnP. Either state does not seem to affect the card or help Win95 to initialize.
The card has one FDC chip to manage all 4 drives.
There are also DIP switches to set different parameters which I think are set correctly since the card ROM is detected during POST and the 4 drives work in DOS.

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Reply 5 of 21, by Vendest

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disaster wrote on 2023-08-15, 11:51:

Oh, I can see that this is brand new product.
Did you buy it "as is" or did you assemble it yourself?
Do you have information about that project?

It was already assembled, link to the shop https://texelec.com/product/quad-flop-four-po … ppy-controller/
And a link to a review https://youtu.be/pjNBPHjUSHE

Reply 7 of 21, by Vendest

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disaster wrote on 2023-08-15, 13:26:

Ok, so first thing - did you disable on-board controller?

Yes I did, that is one of the requirement to get the FDC chip to work.
Win95 can boot and initialize with 2 FDDs connected to the card but won't boot with 4 FFDs connected.

Reply 8 of 21, by weedeewee

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I'm guessing that disabling the quad flop card bios will allow win95 to start without problems.
Unsure though if you can then get access to the 3rd & 4th floppy drive.
According to https://texelec.com/product/quad-flop-four-po … ppy-controller/ there is a driver to allow access to the 3rd & 4th drive in dos yet no clue how compatible that is with windows.

Can you try that, disabling the card bios. (leave the onboard floppy controller disabled but do set the 1st & 2nd drive type correctly in the bios.)

Right to repair is fundamental. You own it, you're allowed to fix it.
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Reply 9 of 21, by maxtherabbit

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weedeewee wrote on 2023-08-15, 16:59:
I'm guessing that disabling the quad flop card bios will allow win95 to start without problems. Unsure though if you can then g […]
Show full quote

I'm guessing that disabling the quad flop card bios will allow win95 to start without problems.
Unsure though if you can then get access to the 3rd & 4th floppy drive.
According to https://texelec.com/product/quad-flop-four-po … ppy-controller/ there is a driver to allow access to the 3rd & 4th drive in dos yet no clue how compatible that is with windows.

Can you try that, disabling the card bios. (leave the onboard floppy controller disabled but do set the 1st & 2nd drive type correctly in the bios.)

Using the DOS installable device driver will still break win32 floppy access

Reply 10 of 21, by weedeewee

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maxtherabbit wrote on 2023-08-16, 04:53:
weedeewee wrote on 2023-08-15, 16:59:
I'm guessing that disabling the quad flop card bios will allow win95 to start without problems. Unsure though if you can then g […]
Show full quote

I'm guessing that disabling the quad flop card bios will allow win95 to start without problems.
Unsure though if you can then get access to the 3rd & 4th floppy drive.
According to https://texelec.com/product/quad-flop-four-po … ppy-controller/ there is a driver to allow access to the 3rd & 4th drive in dos yet no clue how compatible that is with windows.

Can you try that, disabling the card bios. (leave the onboard floppy controller disabled but do set the 1st & 2nd drive type correctly in the bios.)

Using the DOS installable device driver will still break win32 floppy access

Not if you make it into a config sys menu item with the drivers only loading for a dos only session vs a win95 session.

Right to repair is fundamental. You own it, you're allowed to fix it.
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Do not ask Why !
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Serial_port

Reply 11 of 21, by Vendest

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weedeewee wrote on 2023-08-15, 16:59:
I'm guessing that disabling the quad flop card bios will allow win95 to start without problems. Unsure though if you can then g […]
Show full quote

I'm guessing that disabling the quad flop card bios will allow win95 to start without problems.
Unsure though if you can then get access to the 3rd & 4th floppy drive.
According to https://texelec.com/product/quad-flop-four-po … ppy-controller/ there is a driver to allow access to the 3rd & 4th drive in dos yet no clue how compatible that is with windows.

Can you try that, disabling the card bios. (leave the onboard floppy controller disabled but do set the 1st & 2nd drive type correctly in the bios.)

With rom disabled indeed Win95 can boot and read from 1st & 2nd FDD. 3rd & 4th drive are not recognized.
The link to SDRIVE.SYS is unfortunately dead, there seems to be an alternative according to this guide http://www.seasip.info/VintagePC/floppies.html
DC2.SYS can add bios support for 2 more drives, it is then needed to configure the drives with DRIVER.SYS.
Apparently Win95 would then pick up the extra 2 drives.

While I can probably set DRIVER.SYS, I have no clue how to use DC2.SYS in MS-DOS mode.

Reply 12 of 21, by weedeewee

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Vendest wrote on 2023-08-16, 16:07:
With rom disabled indeed Win95 can boot and read from 1st & 2nd FDD. 3rd & 4th drive are not recognized. The link to SDRIVE.SYS […]
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With rom disabled indeed Win95 can boot and read from 1st & 2nd FDD. 3rd & 4th drive are not recognized.
The link to SDRIVE.SYS is unfortunately dead, there seems to be an alternative according to this guide http://www.seasip.info/VintagePC/floppies.html
DC2.SYS can add bios support for 2 more drives, it is then needed to configure the drives with DRIVER.SYS.
Apparently Win95 would then pick up the extra 2 drives.

While I can probably set DRIVER.SYS, I have no clue how to use DC2.SYS in MS-DOS mode.

I missed it myself and I didn't check but they mention on the texelec site that the file can be found on archive.org.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140721002553/ht … r/exsys/ide.zip
that seems to be the link.

the driver needed is in the \ex-3110\SDRIVE directory.

no idea (yet) on the usage though.

the usage of the DC2.SYS is mentioned on the page you linked to.

Another option is DC2.SYS, which adds BIOS support for drives 2 and 3. After DC2 has been loaded, DRIVER.SYS must be used to giv […]
Show full quote

Another option is DC2.SYS, which adds BIOS support for drives 2 and 3. After DC2 has been loaded, DRIVER.SYS must be used to give the new drive a letter. So, for example:

DEVICE=\PATH\TO\DC2.SYS /type2 /type3
DEVICE=\PATH\TO\DRIVER.SYS /D:2 /C /F:type2number
DEVICE=\PATH\TO\DRIVER.SYS /D:3 /C /F:type3number

The drive types for the DC2 line are /360, /720, /1.2 and /1.44. Which is (strictly speaking) incorrect, since 1440k is 1.41Mb not 1.44Mb.

I know of nowhere where you can download DC2.SYS, and since it's copyrighted software I can't offer it for download on this site.

though it seems finding it might be more problematic.

Right to repair is fundamental. You own it, you're allowed to fix it.
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Do not ask Why !
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Serial_port

Reply 13 of 21, by weedeewee

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maxtherabbit wrote on 2023-08-16, 04:53:
weedeewee wrote on 2023-08-15, 16:59:
I'm guessing that disabling the quad flop card bios will allow win95 to start without problems. Unsure though if you can then g […]
Show full quote

I'm guessing that disabling the quad flop card bios will allow win95 to start without problems.
Unsure though if you can then get access to the 3rd & 4th floppy drive.
According to https://texelec.com/product/quad-flop-four-po … ppy-controller/ there is a driver to allow access to the 3rd & 4th drive in dos yet no clue how compatible that is with windows.

Can you try that, disabling the card bios. (leave the onboard floppy controller disabled but do set the 1st & 2nd drive type correctly in the bios.)

Using the DOS installable device driver will still break win32 floppy access

The only way around that would be to have a win95 floppy device driver which supports four floppy drives on one controller.
Does that exist? Do you know of any and where to find them ?

Right to repair is fundamental. You own it, you're allowed to fix it.
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Do not ask Why !
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Serial_port

Reply 14 of 21, by Vendest

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weedeewee wrote on 2023-08-16, 16:27:
I missed it myself and I didn't check but they mention on the texelec site that the file can be found on archive.org. https://we […]
Show full quote
Vendest wrote on 2023-08-16, 16:07:
With rom disabled indeed Win95 can boot and read from 1st & 2nd FDD. 3rd & 4th drive are not recognized. The link to SDRIVE.SYS […]
Show full quote

With rom disabled indeed Win95 can boot and read from 1st & 2nd FDD. 3rd & 4th drive are not recognized.
The link to SDRIVE.SYS is unfortunately dead, there seems to be an alternative according to this guide http://www.seasip.info/VintagePC/floppies.html
DC2.SYS can add bios support for 2 more drives, it is then needed to configure the drives with DRIVER.SYS.
Apparently Win95 would then pick up the extra 2 drives.

While I can probably set DRIVER.SYS, I have no clue how to use DC2.SYS in MS-DOS mode.

I missed it myself and I didn't check but they mention on the texelec site that the file can be found on archive.org.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140721002553/ht … r/exsys/ide.zip
that seems to be the link.

the driver needed is in the \ex-3110\SDRIVE directory.

no idea (yet) on the usage though.

the usage of the DC2.SYS is mentioned on the page you linked to.

Another option is DC2.SYS, which adds BIOS support for drives 2 and 3. After DC2 has been loaded, DRIVER.SYS must be used to giv […]
Show full quote

Another option is DC2.SYS, which adds BIOS support for drives 2 and 3. After DC2 has been loaded, DRIVER.SYS must be used to give the new drive a letter. So, for example:

DEVICE=\PATH\TO\DC2.SYS /type2 /type3
DEVICE=\PATH\TO\DRIVER.SYS /D:2 /C /F:type2number
DEVICE=\PATH\TO\DRIVER.SYS /D:3 /C /F:type3number

The drive types for the DC2 line are /360, /720, /1.2 and /1.44. Which is (strictly speaking) incorrect, since 1440k is 1.41Mb not 1.44Mb.

I know of nowhere where you can download DC2.SYS, and since it's copyrighted software I can't offer it for download on this site.

though it seems finding it might be more problematic.

Thanks for the link to the driver! I will give it a try.
DC2.SYS was previously shared on the forum.

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Reply 15 of 21, by weedeewee

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Vendest wrote on 2023-08-16, 17:07:

Thanks for the link to the driver! I will give it a try.
DC2.SYS was previously shared on the forum.

Oh Cool, thanks. I had missed that.

Right to repair is fundamental. You own it, you're allowed to fix it.
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Do not ask Why !
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Serial_port

Reply 16 of 21, by Vendest

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weedeewee wrote on 2023-08-16, 17:12:
Vendest wrote on 2023-08-16, 17:07:

Thanks for the link to the driver! I will give it a try.
DC2.SYS was previously shared on the forum.

Oh Cool, thanks. I had missed that.

Thanks again for your help, SDRIVE.SYS did the trick!
With ROM disabled 3rd & 4th floppy drives are recognized on DOS and Win95.
Although at 1st boot Win95 triggered a performance warning due to MS-DOS driver "SDRIVE". All drives are now set to MS-DOS compatibility mode.
I might need to revert back to regular DOS.

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Reply 17 of 21, by maxtherabbit

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weedeewee wrote on 2023-08-16, 16:31:
maxtherabbit wrote on 2023-08-16, 04:53:
weedeewee wrote on 2023-08-15, 16:59:
I'm guessing that disabling the quad flop card bios will allow win95 to start without problems. Unsure though if you can then g […]
Show full quote

I'm guessing that disabling the quad flop card bios will allow win95 to start without problems.
Unsure though if you can then get access to the 3rd & 4th floppy drive.
According to https://texelec.com/product/quad-flop-four-po … ppy-controller/ there is a driver to allow access to the 3rd & 4th drive in dos yet no clue how compatible that is with windows.

Can you try that, disabling the card bios. (leave the onboard floppy controller disabled but do set the 1st & 2nd drive type correctly in the bios.)

Using the DOS installable device driver will still break win32 floppy access

The only way around that would be to have a win95 floppy device driver which supports four floppy drives on one controller.
Does that exist? Do you know of any and where to find them ?

Unfortunately I don't, that would be pretty cool though

Reply 18 of 21, by Vendest

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Tested DC2.SYS and DRIVER.SYS instead of SDRIVE.SYS.
Tests are not conclusive.

As an end result:
- sdrive.sys works but will affect all drives performance on Win95 by switching to MS-DOS compatibility mode (drives do not appear anymore in device manager)
- dc2.sys detects the drive installed as 1st & 2nd external drives but fails to probe them correctly.
- driver.sys is not compatible on ms-dos 7.1, therefore cannot be used on win95.

The quad-flop works very well in dos with rom enabled or rom disabled using sdrive.sys.

Reply 19 of 21, by weedeewee

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Even if driver.sys was available you would still have the compatibility mode in windows using dc2.sys.
The only way past that hurdle would be to have a windows specific windows 95 quad floppy disk driver...

Right to repair is fundamental. You own it, you're allowed to fix it.
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Do not ask Why !
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Serial_port

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