5.25 floppy question

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Vato
Posts: 114
Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2009 3:00 pm
Location: Mariestad, Sweden & Tromsø, Norway

Re: 5.25 floppy question

Post by Vato »

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 :D
Tom
Vato
Posts: 114
Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2009 3:00 pm
Location: Mariestad, Sweden & Tromsø, Norway

Re: 5.25 floppy question

Post by Vato »

....and yes, taping over the hole did it for the 3,5" HD diskettes, too.
Tom
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Stig
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Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2014 4:54 pm

Re: 5.25 floppy question

Post by Stig »

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.
Vato
Posts: 114
Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2009 3:00 pm
Location: Mariestad, Sweden & Tromsø, Norway

Re: 5.25 floppy question

Post by Vato »

Stig wrote:I managed to get my disk drive working.
Good news!
Tom
ukretro
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Sep 16, 2014 6:51 am

Re: 5.25 floppy question

Post by ukretro »

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?
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Stig
Posts: 74
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2014 4:54 pm

Re: 5.25 floppy question

Post by Stig »

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
Alastair
Posts: 669
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 11:33 pm

Re: 5.25 floppy question

Post by Alastair »

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.
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Stig
Posts: 74
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2014 4:54 pm

Re: 5.25 floppy question

Post by Stig »

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 !
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Stig
Posts: 74
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2014 4:54 pm

Re: 5.25 floppy question

Post by Stig »

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
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