help to make OWN "ram:" device

[Ilwrath]

[GreatLor]

Problems ?  8-) , you've seen nothing yet, I'm a guy with EXETREME bad luck, I dont know, it seems the universe doesnt want me !  :-(

I might try a cleaning disk on the A500. Also, see if you can find a known-good 3.25 disk to test with. Verbatim's were fairly good disks back in the day, but lots could have happened to your box of them, since then. I don't think Verbatim has made DS/DD 3.25 disks in about 10 years!

The disks I bought are HD disks.

Anyway could it be the drive which is a problem ? I mean, while there are still a few disks about which the system doesnt complain, however, more and more disks get "read/write error" everyday it seems, so where would I get a cleaning disk ? are the ones for pc fully copatible with A500 ?

[ncafferkey]

GreatLor wrote:

The disks I bought are HD disks.

They're the wrong type. You need DD disks.

[Ilwrath]

HD disks could well be the problem.  I've had various amounts of luck with them.  Some have worked fine, others appear to work, and then develop read errors within minutes, and others refuse to even format....  You really need to find some DS/DD 3.5 floppies....

As for the cleaning disk, any type should work.  For Amiga, it should have both the top and bottom read areas open.  (Double sided)  Almost all cleaning disks are like this.  (As almost all drives are, as well.  Not many 3.5 single sided drives out there!)  I've heard of various techniques to making the Amiga drive spin for the cleaning.  Personally, for my A500, I just turned it on, waited for the insert Workbench screen, and inserted the cleaning disk.   oooops, it couldn't boot workbench :lol:   etc, for a couple minutes.  

[GreatLor]

So where in hell could I get DD disks then ? Is there NEW DD disks sold anywhere ?

I have "FUJIFILM" HD disks who work (some of them have got "read/write error" but this they got when I used them as 1.44 MB floppy disks for the PC), but these verbatim disks wont work.
Where's 89-93 when you need'em ?

[iamaboringperson]

(Haven't read through the entire thread yet, so this may have been answered)

Have you done a 'dir' through your RAM: ?

Perhaps a program has a memory leak?

[Ilwrath]

So where in hell could I get DD disks then ? Is there NEW DD disks sold anywhere ?

Not that I know of.  Some places probably still sell new/old stock DS/DD disks.  Some might also sell recycled/used 3.5" DS/DD.  (They run on eBay sometimes....)  But, AFAIK, there are no companies that make DS/DD 3.5" floppies, anymore.

[adolescent]

Nope, there are plenty of places to get new DS/DD disks (even 5.25" and 8" disks!).  I've heard good things about http://www.athana.com and http://www.xdr2.com.

[GreatLor]

Is there something wrong with the prices or what  :-o

[Noster]

Hi

> Is there something wrong with the prices or what

As you have already determined by your own, these disks are extremely rare.

This reminds me to the days in the early 80th, when I've bought disks for my CPC-6128 in 3" format, each single disk about 7,-DM (~ 3.50 $) :-D

Noster

[BouncingAyatollah]

You could try this, DD disks have one hole in them at the corner, HD disks have two. Use a small sticky label or a strip of sticky tape to cover both sides of the hole on the LEFT of the HD disk - left as you look at it label side up with metal shutter nearest to you.

This can fool the drive into accepting the disk as a DD one, but may not work.

[Steady]

The extra hole on HD disks were designed to let a HD disk drive recognise when a high density disk was inserted as a sort of backward compatibility to allow it to also support DD disks. DD disk drives did not need anything extra to support DD disks (as that's what they do ;-)), and don't need to specifically detect HD disks, cos they can't support it anyway.

As a result, I imagine most DD drives neither know nor care about the extra hole, so that idea will most likely not work.

I think it's time to bite the bullet and buy the disks. You get 50 in a pack, even if it is expensive compared to standard disks.

Definitely better value than 8" disks  :-o

[Ilwrath]

Well, I couldn't find prices on the Athana site.  As for xdr2, a box of 50 for $12.95 seems pretty cheap, to me.  Not much worse than the prices for buying in that quantity back in the day...  (Seems like I remember about $18-$20 for 100 disks being the going rate...  Considering how scarce they are nowadays, $26 for 100 seems pretty reasonable.)

Thanks for the link.  I didn't know anywhere still sold them.  Learn something new every day...