Floppy Drive doesn't do both formats, but does sometimes

[Cosmic Puppet]

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It's not an FDDM-101 and only works with1.44MB disks.

So just bit the bullet and ordered this:

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They sell it claiming it WILL work on both.

Bummer if you live in the UK though as the posting doubles the cost and puts it at 5 times the cost of the drive I just tried!

I'm not surprised though. My whole Atari journey has been like this because of my unreasonable wants.

Just thought I'd let people know because I made a post about these but can't find the post.

It's a perfectly able USB drive but only with 1.44 MB disks.

I shall let you guys know how the other drive goes. That might take a while to arrive.

[Cosmic Puppet]

The plot thickens... (After seeing 720K listed on the MPF82E manual I did more checks)





The read disks display FAT as file format:

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Does anyone have any idea why the same brand of disk would read and not read?





Formatted on EmuTOS and doing what I want.

[Cosmic Puppet]

Was just staring at the Floppy.com website and the penny dropped.

So, basically I can use a 1.44MB disk in the Atari formatted to 720K without covering the bottom right hole.

However if I then put this disk in a PC floppy drive it will check for that hole. These disks fail to open and the drive makes a different sound.

Cover this bottom right hole with a sticker and it reads the 720K Atari contents no bother.

Still don't know why some 720K disks that work on the Atari don't read. I'm wondering if it's the presence of an AUTO folder?

*UPDATE* Just had a 720K disk fail to read that had no AUTO folder.

[exxos]

There are some odd things which happen where floppies will work fine in one drive but not another anyway, regardless of how they are formatted. Ideally you should just use the same model of driving the PC and ST so you don't have that problem.

Also I keep meaning to double check,If you format the disk on the PC, put it on the ST and save some files, it changes the boot sector and it will not work on the PC again until reformatted. But I keep forgetting to double check if it is TOS104 or TOS206 causing the problem.

[Cosmic Puppet]

There are some odd things which happen where floppies will work fine in one drive but not another anyway, regardless of how they are formatted. Ideally you should just use the same model of driving the PC and ST so you don't have that problem.

Also I keep meaning to double check,If you format the disk on the PC, put it on the ST and save some files, it changes the boot sector and it will not work on the PC again until reformatted. But I keep forgetting to double check if it is TOS104 or TOS206 causing the problem.

If I format my disks in EmuTOS then the 720 K ones and 1.0 MB ones work fine. (If I format using TOS 1.04 with the UltraSatan plugged in... Just don't do it. Your sanity won't thank you ) So I'm getting to grips with a workable system. Spotting quirks that once identified I can stay away from. (Had a thing before, where starting a disk with the system switched to Low Resolution for colour didn't show the drives, yet did in High Monochrome mode. Now it's working in both. It was that actual disk!) My Game SD for Low Res is sorted. EmuTOS for everything High Res and I'm good). I just need to know where the boundaries of reliability are. e.g if I run Music Mouse from a floppy disk it's really unstable and crashes a lot. VERY reliable on EmuTOS but with oddities which I'll get into when I've finished with this manual for KMP.

Just wanted to know why some don't read in the PC drive like the cover disk with Trip-A-Tron doesn't read.

I'll test that this evening @exxos

I'll also test this other drive I've ordered. If it's exactly the same then I've wasted fifty quid.

[Cosmic Puppet]

Here you go @exxos

Command Line Floppy Format.jpg (55.55 KiB) Viewed 5329 times

Floppy Disk formatted in windows 10.

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Windows creates this file which is not visible on TOS 1.04, yet still consumes space.

Copied the README.DOC from TRIP-A-TRON to the PC formatted floppy disk and successfully opened it using LibreOffice.

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Checking back to see if it still worked on the Atari this file appeared.

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It had appdata path for my PC

Now TOS 1.04:

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Same README.DOC file

Tried copying it to my downloads folder:

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Same test with my UltraSatan unplugged from the Hard Disk port:

Screenshot 2021-04-12 000042.jpg (187.08 KiB) Viewed 5329 times

I made the decision a while ago to only format disks using EmuTOS (which I have running on my UltraSatan).

I just see it as a trade off for having a lot more possibilities.

The UltraSatan just doesn't play nice with TOS 1.04

Even if it's switched off it gives the same trouble. Unplug it and everything is fine (allowing for occasional Atari flakeyness )

[exxos]

Tos 104. 206 should be able to read 720k formatted on the PC. Always do a full format not a fast one..

I think it's when 206 saves files to the floppy, it somehow stops the PC from reading them again. Will try and verify tomorrow...

[Cosmic Puppet]

Tos 104. 206 should be able to read 720k formatted on the PC. Always do a full format not a fast one..

I think it's when 206 saves files to the floppy, it somehow stops the PC from reading them again. Will try and verify tomorrow...

They do. Formatting on the Atari takes the same amount of time though and doesn't include a volume file.

It's just copying files end up corrupted if the UltraSatan is plugged in.

That TRIP-A-TRON document was copied to a PC formatted floppy and viewed on the PC.

[exxos]

What are you formatting on the ST with ? Not sure if 206 formats as DOS compatible in gem or not. I tend to just format them on the PC..

Having ultrasatan plugged in shouldn't affect the floppy...

[Cosmic Puppet]

What are you formatting on the ST with ? Not sure if 206 formats as DOS compatible in gem or not. I tend to just format them on the PC..

Having ultrasatan plugged in shouldn't effect the floppy...

I format disks using the format in EmuTOS. The UltraSatan being plugged in always has affected my floppies. I've tried to show it step by step. The only difference between the two TOS 1.04 tests show was the UltraSatan being plugged in or not. Plugged in: File wouldn't open on PC Unplugged: File opened no problem.

For this test they were formatted on windows 10.