exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

So it looks more like a problem with RAM, not the floppy... have you tried to run YAART?

No, I haven't. I'm assuming that is some sort of memory testing utility?

I'll look for it and give it a try.

Thanks.

I ran YAART on my 520STM, since it seems to be working OK. I figured it would work well from it and I'd know what to expect.

It won't even more than start on my problem STF. I get this error almost immediately.

Be sure that nothing is started at boot: No accessories, no AUTO folder programs, no code from a floppy disk boot sector, preferably also no hard disk driver.

Yeah, there's nothing TO start. This is a plain Jane Atari 1040STF. No hard drive. The only thing on the disk image are the three files that came with YAART. Two TOS files and a text file. If it's something chip-wise, it's happened within the past month or so, while the computer was powered down and packed away, because the Gotek was working in this computer before that.

If there were a broken wire or connection somewhere floppy related, could that manifest itself that way? The only reason I'm hung up on the floppy connectors is that I was plugging/unplugging several floppy drives and the Gotek, swapping things around, verifying several drive mechanisms that I have. I wasn't sure if I could've broken a wire in the insulation, where it can't be seen, that could cause any of these issues. I mean, it seems strange that SysInfo loads and runs without a hitch, but almost nothing else will. And now I get this strange error.

Here's the memory details from the SysInfo utility. I don't know enough about what it's telling me other than it looks like it has 1MB, as it should. Of course, I realize that doesn't tell me if the RAM is good or not.

I think there are 2 versions of YAART.

YAART and YARRTT.

It's clearly trying to run but has a problem with RAM, for STF just use YAART, the other is for TT I think.

I cannot explain it, then. What YAART checks when returning that error is that the screen memory is at the very upper end of RAM. I.e. that PHYSTOP = SCREENMEMORY + $8000. Your SYSINFO screenshot shows me that this is the case. Since you're the only person reporting this error so far, I'm pretty sure this is not a bug in YAART, either.

PS: The thing that puzzles me though: Why can't SYSINFO read out the bank configuration from the MMU. (It says "UNKNOWN" there.) That's not normal.

I just booted up Hatari and set it up to emulate a plain Jane 1040ST. I took a screenshot of SysInfo running on that. The two screenshots look identical with the exception of Bank 0 and Bank 1 showing UNKNOWN at $FF8001 on my system, and showing 512 Kbytes each on the emulated system. I'm not sure what is up with that.

I need to disassemble this machine later and look it over. I'll post back here if I have any luck locating a smoking gun.

Thanks for the help guys.

...to make things more complex - in the change-log of FlashFloppy v2.14 there is stated:
HxC Compat, v8-FF: Fixes startup crash on Atari ST

I have two Goteks. One has 2.13 and one has 2.14. I'm fairly certain I've tried them both. The earlier one, 2.13 ran fine on this machine before, so I don't think this is an issue for me. I'll double-check and try both though, just to make sure.