Recently i purchased a double 3.5 disk drive set. I asked to be a Shugart compatible set. I use a CST Qdisc controller with v1.13 firmware. The problem is that when i do a "dir flp1_" for the first time since i boot the QL, i can see the directory listing of the floppy disk. From here, whenever i do a "dir flp1_", "dir flp2_", or try to "run" or "lrun" a program from either disk drive, the QL responds with a "no found" message. The seller emailed that he tested the drive set with a disciple disk interface for the ZX Spectrum and worked fine. The CST Qdisc interface works flawless with a double 5.25 Cumana disk drive set. I tried CST Qdisc firmware v1.08, v1.16, v1.13 and cumana firmware v1.16 but with no avail.
Any ideas?
Try removing the cable from flp2 to ensure that you are just trouble shooting one drive.
Is the drive light on constantly? If so, the cable is upside down.
Are you using proper DD disks, or HD disks which have been formatted to DD ? If the latter, they are notorious for being unreliable unless used in the original disk drive?
i am completely baffled. I used a non inverted cable and the symptoms changed. I used Cst Qdisc v1.16 firmware and the symptoms changed again. I used DD floppy disks and the symptoms changed again and again... I think i'll throw it to the bin...
Well if you guide us through the symptoms, we may be able to help.
A picture of the cable would be a start - I assume the disk drives do not have any jumpers on them... Also double check how the cable is plugged into the back of the disk drives - it is all too easy to miss the first two pins on one end!
i used DD floppy disks but nothing changed. No, the drives do not have any jumpers. Maybe they have pads, but underneath the metal cover which i can not remove. I cut the cable and modified as a "no twist" between 10 and 12 pins but no luck. I modified it again with the twist at 10 and 12 pins and now i take no dir list from either drive and all the formats are failing.
Using just a straight through floppy cable, I plug just one floppy mechanism in, then DIR flp1_ and dir flp2_ to see which address it's jumpered to, then write that on the drive in dry erase marker.
I then format a blank floppy in it, copy files onto the floppy, copy them off again and see what I have. Using anything other than a single floppy cable always seems to be a recipe for unnecessary complication during testing.
