archive.worldofdragon.org

robcfg wrote:Actually, you can format 3.5" disks up to 720Kb using DSKINIT drive,2,80.

Glad to hear you got it working!

Hehe, never thought about that.... I tried it, and it works, too! That old DragonDOS controller impresses me, 728064 bytes free

....and yes, taping over the hole did it for the 3,5" HD diskettes, too.

I managed to get my disk drive working. The internal transformer had died. Running it off an ATX power supply and it is working fine

Big thanks to some very smart people on facebook who helped me diagnose the problem.

Stig wrote:I managed to get my disk drive working.

Good news!

I've had a Dragon disk-drive in a box for a couple of years now which I bought from eBay.

I unpacked it the other day to test it, only to find the drive-locking catch had been snapped off.

Gorilla Glue fixed it and (surprisingly) it seems quite firm. The drive now works but I need to remember to be careful when inserting or ejecting a disk.

If anyone has a dead Dragon 5.25" disk-drive they could pull a drive-locking latch from, I'd be grateful if we could work out a price to replace mine with something less likely to fall apart if I forget.

I took the case apart to see if I could replace the entire drive with one from a BBC Micro (I have spares of those) but the Dragon case has a non-standard mounting design. The drives are (obviously) the same size as others but where the mounting holes are, the Dragon drives are recessed and slide vertically down a rail into their mounting position. No other drives I own have the same recessed mounting holes.

Edit: Oh, while I remember. Is DragonDOS 1.0 the latest? If not, what would be the benefits of upgrading the DOS ROM to a later version?

So after getting my Dragon FDD working, I had been happily reading and writing from / to disk without any problems for a few weeks.

I hadn't used the dragon for a few days and today I turned it on and can't get anything to load from disk. All I am getting is a ?NR Error.

I know this means Not Ready but I don't know why. Nothing has changed ! I tried to format a blank disk with DSKINIT and still getting the ?NR Error

Tried changing to drive 0, 1, 2 etc and just the same error.

Can anyone offer any help or suggestions to why it was working fine then now it's not ?

Thanks

John,
does a "Not Ready" error mean that the Dragon thinks that there is no disc in the drive? If so then it may be that a slight knock has partially dislodged a cable so the drive ready signal isn't getting through, or perhaps the means by which the drive detects the presence of a disc (I'm guessing this is a spring loaded arm) needs attention.

Thanks for the tips Alastair !

I popped it open this evening and the belt that spins the disc had dropped off ! Took ten minutes to fix and reassemble
I also cleaned the belt and pullies while I was there.

All working again hurrah !

OK guys I would like to use 2 x 3.5" PC drives and 2 x 5.25" Cumana drives together giving me 4 drives in total

The Cumana drives have internal jumpers, so i can mess with them to get them set up but the PC drives don't have any jumpers.

Anyone know what configuration of ribbon cable I would need to get this to work ?

Thanks

John