Help me transfer my TI disks

[dphirschler]

I have a bunch of TI disks, 100 or so maybe more. I can’t jumpstart my PEB to test the disks. I was able to transfer 20-30 disks a while back (two years ago maybe), and then last month I transferred two disks. And that was the end of it. The first disk transferred easily. The second transferred with some trouble. No more would transfer after that.

Details:

The first batch of disks was transferred using a PC with a (I don't have the model number at the moment) 5.25” floppy drive. It’s an older Windows XP machine. I have it booting off a Win98 boot disk, booting into DOS. I then run the ti99-pc software. I transferred probably 30 disks with only a couple of failures. I ran out of time and put everything away. I only recently got back to trying to transfer them again. And then I was unable to transfer a single disk!

The second set of disks was transferred using the same PC with a TEAC FD-55GFR floppy drive. I got two transferred before it stopped working. I noticed one disk (labeled “Atarisoft” :-( ) was damaged pretty badly. A good half a centimeter-wide ring on the disk had been rubbed clean of any magnetic material. It was practically see-thru. My initial feeling is that some of the magnetic residue rubbed off on the drive heads. However, I don’t know if it was already like that or if it just happened. I bought a cleaning disk and gave it another go. Nothing.

I could give it a third attempt using the actual TI floppy disk drive (which is a half-height Toshiba 5471L0K) mounted in the same PC. But it will be some trouble to remove the drive.

Any advice?

Darryl

[marc.hull]

Take the drive out and clean the heads with isopropyl and a qtip. If its really gummed up then a cleaning disk won't do it. Hopefully that's the ticket.

[+adamantyr]

I have a PC running DOS 6.22 with a 5 1/4" drive that will read 360k disks I can pull out if you need help transferring.

[Ed in SoDak]

Whichever drive is scrubbing oxide has a serious fault that cleaning won't safely help. You can shine a light in there with no disk inserted and slowly close the door while you watch for the heads. The heads are tiny nubs on the ends of skinny arms which swing towards the disk surface as the door is closed. They are mounted on springy copper or some such. I've seen heads bend out of whack or fall off and drag along or the raw edges of the arms themselves contact the oxide coating on the disk. One rotation of this action will wreck a floppy.

 

Do any testing on blank disks or those you've already successfully transferred. Don't risk the others till you verify things are ok.

 

-Ed

[dphirschler]

Is it hard to get access to the heads to clean them? Do I just reach in the front slot with a qtip?

 

 

Darryl

[marc.hull]

You may have to take off some shielding. Usually I bend the qtip to 90 degrees and clean until the cotton stops coming out black. Couple of minutes anyway.

[dphirschler]

OK, I cleaned the heads on one of the drives. It's a Chinon model FZ-506. I put it back in the PC and started transferring disks. Funny any disk that is not a 360K disk fails at the halfway point. For instance, a 1400 sector disk fails at (or sometimes near) sector 720. A 720 sector disk fails at sector 360. What do you make of that?

 

The good news is that I was able to transfer some of the 360K disks, and partially transfer some of the other disks.

 

Darryl

[marc.hull]

Look at your BIOS settings on the PC and verify the drive will accomodate 80 tracks ?

[+Ksarul]

Is that Cinon Drive 720K capable or is it 360K only (and if it is an HD drive, it will normally read the 720K disks without issues as long as you have your BIOS settings right).

 

Jim

[dphirschler]

I'll check the bios settings. Gonna be real embarrassed if that's it.

 

 

Darryl

[RXB]

Why many many years ago I bought two Disk Drive Cleaning kits with multiple cleaners and fluid.

 

Look just like 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 disks with white linen inside.

 

You put a drop of fluid on them and put them in disk drive and from XB just keep typing OLD DSK#.X over and over.

 

For a really bad one I use RXB

 

100 ! BACKUP BY SECTOR

110 DISPLAY AT(1,3)ERASE ALL BEEP:"RXB BACKUP SECTOR COPIER": : : : :"MASTER PATH:": : : : : : : : :"COPY PATH:"

120 ACCEPT AT(6,14)SIZE(5):M$ :: ACCEPT AT(15,14)SIZE(5):C$ :: CALL SECTOR(M$,1,1,"0") :: CALL MOVES("R$",255,8192,SM0$)

130 SECTOR1$=SEG$(SM0$,11,2) :: SIDE1$=SEG$(SM0$,19,1) :: DENSITY1$=SEG$(SM0$,20,1) :: CALL SECTOR(C$,1,1,"0") :: CALL MOVES("R$",255,8192,SC0$)

140 SECTOR2$=SEG$(SC0$,11,2) :: SIDE2$=SEG$(SC0$,19,1) :: DENSITY2$=SEG$(SC0$,20,1) :: IF ASC(DENSITY1$)<>ASC(DENSITY2$)THEN 190

150 IF ASC(SIDE1$)<>ASC(SIDE2$)THEN 190

160 SECTORS1=ASC(SEG$(SECTOR1$,1,1))*256+ASC(SEG$(SECTOR1$,2,1)) :: SECTORS2=ASC(SEG$(SECTOR2$,1,1))*256+ASC(SEG$(SECTOR2$,2,1)) :: IF SECTORS1<>SECTORS2 THEN 190

170 DISPLAY AT(9,1):"SECTORS=";SECTORS1:"SIDES=";ASC(SIDE1$):"DENSITY=";ASC(DENSITY1$) :: DISPLAY AT(17,1):"SECTORS=";SECTORS2:"SIDES=";ASC(SIDE2$):"DENSITY=";ASC(DENSITY2$)

180 FOR S=0 TO SECTORS1-1 STEP 32 :: CALL HEX(S,S$) :: DISPLAY AT(24,1):"READ/WRITE SECTOR=";S :: CALL SECTOR(M$,1,32,S$,C$,0,32,S$) :: NEXT S :: DISPLAY AT(15,14)ERASE ALL BEEP:"DONE" :: END

190 GOTO 180 ! CALL HONK :: DISPLAY AT(15,6)ERASE ALL:"BAD FORMAT MATCH" :: END

It writes a sector from another disk but does not check if the sector was written or not.

I modified line 190 so it never stops till all of DISK 1 is copied, that way every single sector is cleaned on DISK 2.

Edited October 4, 2014 by RXB