accessing the 3.5 drive on a apple iigs

Is your 3.5" drive HD (1.4mb) or just 800K? An 800k one should work for sure. I was just playing with a ROM01 IIgs I just bought, and it didn't like my 800k daisy chained off of a 5.25" drive. But when the 800k drive was first in the chain, it was happy. Run SYSUTIL.SYSTEM and see what volumes show up.

I just recieved a Apple IIgs.. with a 5.25 and a 3.5 drive.. I only have and old ProDos 1.4 ... I can't access the 3.5 .. but I can access the 5.25... do I need a newer dos? .. or is the drive defective?... any help appreciated...
>>>>Mike

Two things come to mind. 1.) Any 5.25 drives must be last on the drive chain, 2.) In the GS control panel, is slot 5 set to "smart port"?

not sure what the drive is but the model # is 9A9M0106 .

Yeah, it can be tough to tell because it was a popular thing to retrofit HD mechanisms in DD cases.

not sure what GS control panel is.. or how to access...

Control-Openapple-Escape. Lets you fool with all sorts of configuration settings.

what I try to do is to format a disk in the drive and the drive light turns on and the drive does nothing else.. i have no software on 3.5.. i am using utilities 2.1.1. to try to format

Hmmm. That doesn't sound good. If you have the 3.5 connected to the IIgs and the 5.25 daisy chained off of the 3.5, it ought to work - barring mechanical failure.

not sure what the drive is but the model # is 9A9M0106 . and yes I found out it does do things when its not daisy chained off the 5.25..(the GS checks this drive first for a boot disk.. and ejects the unformatted disk then loads from the 5.25) not sure what GS control panel is.. or how to access.. what I try to do is to format a disk in the drive and the drive light turns on and the drive does nothing else.. i have no software on 3.5.. i am using utilities 2.1.1. to try to format ...thanks

>>>>>Mike

You're trying to format a 3.5? Are you using double density disks? High density disks will often fail. Could your drive be dirty?

the 3.5 will do nothing... unless I pr#5 .. then it will come alive...

3.5 drives will show up on GSs as slot 5, drives 1 and 2.

I then tried to format the 3.5 with slot 5 ..and it worked but not with a ds/dd floppy but with a HD disk.

Stranger still. Because...

i then used 267 block with ProDos.. and have 1326 left.

Ok, an 800k DS/DD floppy has 1600 blocks (1600blocks*512bytes=800k). Sounds like your floppy got formatted to 800k... but that's not a good thing, given the fact that you fed it a HD diskette. It's doomed to failure soon.

so my questions are why do i need to access the 3.5 drive with slot 5,1 .. and with block count .. what size is the 3.5 drive..

Slot/disk 5/1 is right. 6/1 is the 5.25" drive. All the "slots" are kind of virtual in the GS world. SmartPorts, and all that. The 3.5 drive most likey an 800k drive. Why it rejected your DS/DD media is a mystery - unless the media is bad.

i dont think that prodos 1.4 supports 3.5 inch drives, i maybe wrong please correct me if i am!)

I need a table of what ProDOS versions there were. I use 1.1.1 because 1) it runs on a raw 6502, and 2) it spins 3.5" disks. Now, is 1.1.1 less than or greater than 1.4?

you said .. Given I fed .. the 3.5 drive a HD disk ..its doomed to fail.. did you mean the Drive its self or.. the disk? .... Thanks.... Mike

Sorry, I realize that was ambiguous. If you format a HD diskette in a DD drive, it'll appear to work, for a while. But the diskette will eventually (and not too far into the future) stop working. There's a difference between the current required to magnetize the two different kinds of media, and HD media formatted by DD drives won't work for long.

Sorry, I realize that was ambiguous. If you format a HD diskette in a DD drive, it'll appear to work, for a while. But the diskette will eventually (and not too far into the future) stop working. There's a difference between the current required to magnetize the two different kinds of media, and HD media formatted by DD drives won't work for long.

I've formatted, and repeatedly used HD media formatted in the standard Apple 800k drives with Apple II's (//e's, //c's, and //c+'s) for YEARS with no problems.

Mutant_Pie

I've formatted, and repeatedly used HD media formatted in the standard Apple 800k drives with Apple II's (//e's, //c's, and //c+'s) for YEARS with no problems.

Impressive! You run counter to much of the rest of the industry's experience. Here's one conversation from a PC discussion group:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.tandy/browse_thread/thread/77d1d1f9235f5f42/18ad4e221a49f529?lnk=st&q=formatting+hd+media+in+dd+drive&rnum=2&hl=en#18ad4e221a49f529

The biggest problem is trying to read and write the same diskette with different drives (HD vs DD). You're doomed to failure in that scenario. Keeping it all DD is less risky, but not a lot.

Well, at least for one decade, since HD disks became cheap. I've had no problems with them.

Some of that made for PC hardware spoken of on the page that you referred to is part of the issue I think. The old floppy drives made by Apple are very durable. Clean the heads once every five years and they may last forever.

Also, I think the quality of the manufacturing of the magnetic/plastic material improved from the DD to the HD disks.

Mutant Pie

I think the quality of the manufacturing of the magnetic/plastic material improved from the DD to the HD disks.

That might very well be. I had two HD boot diskettes just go bad on me that I used (very infrequently) for a couple of years on my Mac Plus. The diskettes themselves were several years older than that... but not as old as the Mac Plus.

I think the quality of the manufacturing of the magnetic/plastic material improved from the DD to the HD disks.

That might very well be. I had two HD boot diskettes just go bad on me that I used (very infrequently) for a couple of years on my Mac Plus. The diskettes themselves were several years older than that... but not as old as the Mac Plus.

Uh-huh. And when was the last time that you cleaned the magnetic heads in that 20 year old disk drive?

Mutant_Pie

Uh-huh. And when was the last time that you cleaned the magnetic heads in that 20 year old disk drive?

Heh heh. Ya got me there. Never ever.

...of 800k vs. 1.4M drive compatibility:
http://macfaq.org/hardware/media.shtml#Q2.3.3
It seems to reconcile all the viewpoints that have been expressed here. Mainly:

1. mechanical and electromagnetic tolerances can all fall within spec between the two drives and media, making interhcange possible.
2. Writing on a disk (i.e. if it has ever been formatted) at 1.4M and then trying to re-write using 800k almost always ends in disaster until full demagnetization of the media.