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PascalG · 11-29-2020, 07:01 PM

I have several HP-150 and HP-110 floppy disks that I want to archive in order to preserve them. I tried to use Teledisk 2.16 on an old Olivetti PC but I keep having errors. Right at the beginning when Teledisks tries to detect the floppy format, it detects that it's a double density (which is not correct as it is a single density) and then it says "Drive A: is not ready".
I tried to check my floppy disk controller with testfdc and it gives me this (see attachment). Is it a compatibility problem with my floppy disk drive ? any advice ?

toml_12953 · 11-29-2020, 07:07 PM

(11-29-2020 07:01 PM)PascalG Wrote: I have several HP-150 and HP-110 floppy disks that I want to archive in order to preserve them. I tried to use Teledisk 2.16 on an old Olivetti PC but I keep having errors. Right at the beginning when Teledisks tries to detect the floppy format, it detects that it's a double density (which is not correct as it is a single density) and then it says "Drive A: is not ready".
I tried to check my floppy disk controller with testfdc and it gives me this (see attachment). Is it a compatibility problem with my floppy disk drive ? any advice ?

It could be an incompatibility with your floppy controller rather than your disk drive. If the Olivetti has a free ISA slot, try to get an Adaptec AHA 1522A SCSI adapter for it. That includes a floppy controller that's 100% compatible with all the testfdc formats. I have one and have the SCSI turned off and just use the FDC on it.

Dave Frederickson · 11-29-2020, 07:36 PM

(11-29-2020 07:01 PM)PascalG Wrote: Right at the beginning when Teledisks tries to detect the floppy format, it detects that it's a double density (which is not correct as it is a single density) and then it says "Drive A: is not ready".

That's strange. All of the 110/150 discs I've worked with are double-density.

There are DOS drivers that will allow one to work with HP formatted discs on a PC. Here's one.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vabp3-9...sp=sharing

Dave

PascalG · 11-29-2020, 08:08 PM

(11-29-2020 07:36 PM)Dave Frederickson Wrote:
(11-29-2020 07:01 PM)PascalG Wrote: Right at the beginning when Teledisks tries to detect the floppy format, it detects that it's a double density (which is not correct as it is a single density) and then it says "Drive A: is not ready".

That's strange. All of the 110/150 discs I've worked with are double density.

Dave

Yes you’re correct I made a mistake, they are single side but double density.

PascalG · 11-29-2020, 08:13 PM

(11-29-2020 07:07 PM)toml_12953 Wrote: That includes a floppy controller that's 100% compatible with all the testfdc formats. I have one and have the SCSI turned off and just use the FDC on it.

Do you know what format listed in testfdc I should check to be compatible ?

Dave Frederickson · 12-02-2020, 10:19 PM

(11-29-2020 08:13 PM)PascalG Wrote: Do you know what format listed in testfdc I should check to be compatible ?

Here's the table from the ImageDisk doc.

Code:

Drive type      Cyls    Rpm     Rate

---------------------------------------

5.25" DD        40      300     250

5.25" QD        80      300     250

5.25" HD        80      360     500/300

3.5"  DD        80      300     250

3.5"  HD        80      300     500/250

8"              77      360     500

So for HP 110 and 150 floppies, you only need to pass the double-density test at 250 kbps, which your controller does.

Dave

PascalG · 12-03-2020, 06:03 AM

(12-02-2020 10:19 PM)Dave Frederickson Wrote: So for HP 110 and 150 floppies, you only need to pass the double-density test at 250 kbps, which your controller does.

Dave

Thanks very much, this narrows the causes for my problem. I will try with different versions of teledisk.

Dave Frederickson · 12-03-2020, 04:39 PM

TeleDisk 2.16 is the correct version to use with 3.5" media.

Are you running TeleDisk under DOS?
Are you using DS/DD media and not HD?
Did you try the driver?

Dave

PascalG · (This post was last modified: 12-04-2020 12:22 PM by PascalG.)

(12-03-2020 04:39 PM)Dave Frederickson Wrote: TeleDisk 2.16 is the correct version to use with 3.5" media.

Are you running TeleDisk under DOS?
Are you using DS/DD media and not HD?
Did you try the driver?

Dave

I made some further tests and I found that the problem was the disks themselves. I was trying to copy a set of Lotus 123 disks and for some unknown reason teledisk would give me a reading error on several disks. I tried with another set of disks (Condor database) and it worked fine !
On each track it would give a reading error message saying that sector 17 of each track was different in size (128 instead of 256), but the process continued.
The only problem is that when I try to recreate disks from teledisk image it gives me an error reading A: side 0 sect 17 on each cylinder (probably linked to this size of 128). I had to press a key after each cylinder, which is not convenient.

I made some dumps of the disks using SuperCard Pro and it worked fine and the process is straightforward (no errors). I then used the Sydex driver you mentioned (excellent software!) in order to test the copies of the disks made with SCP on my Olivetti and everything was ok. :-)
I will continue with SCP for the archiving of my disks, it's more reliable.

Thanks very much for your help !!