I finished a bunch of tests. Only 1 drive out of 5 appears to work properly!
Here is some documentation of the tests which succeeded. I wanted to get at least one working test for each "Floptical Aware" controller that I have. This should be helpful for anyone who has some floptical equipment and would like to get a start on configuring the drive, controller, and O/S to work with the drive. The last big test is for the Floptical Drive to successfully Format a Floptical disk. While a few of my drives will read/write/format a 1.44MB floppy, only one will successfully format a floptical disk in any/all of the configurations listed below:
General Test Notes:
*** Each time a 21MB Floptical was inserted, it took a bit of time for
the drive to register the media change. There is no external indication
when the drive comes ready (like an LED flash) but listening for the
drive to spin down or waiting maybe 15 seconds seems to work. This can
result in a lot of "Abort, Retry, Fail" messages (which might seem to
falsely indicate a bad drive or media) if you are unaware of this!!!
Config 1:
System: Gateway 2000 Pentium
Floppy Controller: Disabled
Adapter: Rancho Technologies (RTBios V8.20)
Jumpers: J2/J4 (DCOOh - Factory), J11 (Term Pwr), J13 (Reserved)
BIOS ROM: Enabled
Unit: C (SGI)
Jumpers: E1 (ID 2), E4 (Parity)
O/S Success:
DOS 5.0: Yes
DOS 6.22: No (FMTFLOPT TSR Would Not Load)
DOS 7 (Win98se): No (FMTFLOPT TSR Would Not Load)
Config.sys:
Device=C:\RANCHO\FTASPI10.SYS
Device=C:\VALUSTOR\21DRVR.SYS
Autoexec.bat:
C:\RANCHO\FMTFLOPT.EXE (TSR - Would not load under DOS 6.22/DOS 7)
Enumerated as:
Drive A:
Utilities:
FORMAT: C:\DOS\FORMAT.COM (Requires FMTFLOPT TSR to Patch)
Notes:
- Grassroots Controller would work in this exact same configuration
(Same drivers, Config.sys and Autoexec.bat)
Config 2:
System: Gateway 2000 Pentium
Floppy Controller: Disabled
Adapter: Grassroots Floptical SCSI Controller (BIOS V3.50)
Jumpers: JP8/JP10 (CCOOh - Factory)
BIOS ROM: Enabled
Unit: C (SGI)
Jumpers: E1 (ID 2), E4 (Parity)
O/S Success:
DOS 5.0: Yes
DOS 6.22: Yes
DOS 7 (Win98se): Yes
Config.sys:
Device=C:\GRASSRTS\ASPIRAM.SYS
Device=C:\GRASSRTS\SCSIDRV.SYS (See Notes)
Autoexec.bat:
{N/A}
Enumerated as:
Drive A: / D: (simultaneously)
Utilities:
FORMAT: C:\GRASSRTS\QFMT.EXE
Notes:
- It seems if the Grassroots SCSIDRV.SYS was loaded, then the drive
would actually get TWO drive letters (A: and D:) and could be
accessed via either
Config 3:
System: Gateway 2000 Pentium
Floppy Controller: Disabled
Adapter: Adaptec 1522FS (BIOS 2.00f - 9500)
Jumpers (From Default):
IRQ (J6/IC, J9/I0): 10 (Conflict w/MB on 11)
Floppy (J7/FE): Disabled (Conflict w/MB)
Floptical Support (J5/R-): Enabled
Unit: C (SGI)
Jumpers: E1 (ID 2), E4 (Parity)
O/S Success:
DOS 5.0: Yes
DOS 6.22: Yes
DOS 7 (Win98se): Yes
Config.sys:
Device=C:\ADAPTEC\ASPI2DOS.SYS
Autoexec.bat:
{N/A}
Enumerated as:
Drive A:
Utilities:
FORMAT: C:\ADAPTEC\VHDFMT.EXE
Notes:
Config 4:
System: Gateway 2000 Pentium
Floppy Controller: Disabled
Adapter: Adaptec 1542CF (MCODE 563D/BIOS C38D)
Jumpers: SW1-4:Off, SW5:On (Floppy Disabled), SW6-8:Off
Firmware/BIOS Setting (From Default)
IRQ: 10
BIOS Support for Floptical Drives: Enabled
Unit: C (SGI)
Jumpers: E4 (Parity) (*** See Notes)
O/S Success:
DOS 5.0: Yes
DOS 6.22: Yes
DOS 7 (Win98se): Yes
Config.sys:
Device=C:\ADAPTEC\ASPI4DOS.SYS
Autoexec.bat:
{N/A}
Enumerated as:
Drive A:
Utilities:
FORMAT: C:\ADAPTEC\VHDFMT.EXE
Notes:
- Device set to SCSI ID #0: With device set to SCSI ID #3, the
AHA-1542 BIOS was unhappy NOT to find ANY device at ID#0 and
would temporarily hang while booting. Normally, ID#0
and ID#1 are reserved for hard drives, but moving the
Floptical to ID#0 eliminated the long pause at boot time.
- BIOS MUST be enabled in order to support the VHDFMT utility.