How to format disks?

[AtariLeaf]

I've got a couple of 1050 drives that have been sitting around for about a year. I'm not sure if they work because I don't have any disk based software but I've got a bunch of blank 5 1/4 disks. I thought I could try formatting one in the drives. Is there a way to format disks for the 1050? Or do I need some kind of basic disk to do anything?

I basically just want to see if the drives are in working condition.

Thanks

[Goochman]

You first need a disk with DOS on it - 2.0, 2.5, MyDOS, SpartaDos, doesnt matter. From there you can Format or 'Initialize' a disk.

 

Though for me I have some 1050's that can read disks but not properly format them

[AtariLeaf]

Darn, things were much easier with my old Coco3.

So is there any other way to test a drive to see if it works?

[oesii]

well, you're going to have to get DOS on there to format the disks and see if everything is working. There's two options besides someone sending you a 5 1/4 disk with DOS on it (or you can get a commercial game disk).

 

InstaDos cart:

 

http://www.atariage.com/store/product_info...products_id=129

 

 

or a Sio2pc setup to load DOS onto your computer:

 

http://www.atariage.com/store/product_info...products_id=107

[Nukey Shay]

How to format a disk with no dos...

 

POKE 768,49:POKE 769,1:POKE 770,33:POKE 771,0:POKE 774,255: D=USR(ADR("hLYd

 

 

Red=inverse

 

 

If the drive works correctly, it will "step" over the entire surface of the floppy once.

[Nukey Shay]

BTW here's a way to save or load Basic programs to/from a disk without using Dos at all...

http://atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=32838#32838

 

No replacement for an actual Dos of course, but it's something you can use if you just want to see if the drive works.

 

@Goochman--

Sounds like the timing is a bit off (formatting always seems to be more picky than saving). Try adjusting the timing screw.

http://atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=25783

[kevin242]

How to format a disk with no dos...

 

POKE 768,49:POKE 769,1:POKE 770,33:POKE 771,0:POKE 774,255: D=USR(ADR("hLYd

 

 

Red=inverse

 

 

If the drive works correctly, it will "step" over the entire surface of the floppy once.

 

Interesting! But what does it format your disk into??

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

kvn

[Nukey Shay]

Single-density. 720 sectors of 128 bytes each. This format is totally compatable with Dos 2.x.

And the Nodos program routines will write a Basic program to the disk as untokenized text (starting from sector 720 and work upward sector-by-sector). Since this ignores the VTOC and directory sectors, it's extremely destructive...use it with scratch disks only. But it can come in handy if you find yourself unable to communicate with the drive (if Dos becomes corrupted, save it to a scratch disk, then boot Dos and use the loader to get it back in memory - where it can be saved normally).