Microdrives, QL floppies and DOS floppies ?

[polka]

When I bought my fisrt QL (end 1984 - it was a QWERTY model unofficialy imported in small numbers before the official importer DIRECO released the AZERTY version), I soon added a Sandy SuperQBoard and a double 3"5 disk drive, and very easily transfered all my software to floppies (Qdos format).

When I abdicated to PC world, I first bought a licence for QPC, and rather easily transfered all my software to WIN container files. After a while my 600x800 SVGA PC broke and the QPC master floppy became corrupted. Then I switched to a licence for Danieles's Qemulator, and luckily the internal floppy drive of my new PC let me transfer the software again to a WIN container, directly from Qdos format floppies. I backuped all this several times on CDs.

By now, I changed my PC again (2 times actually) and today, they no longer have internal floppy drives. So I have on one side 2 real QL with QL format floppies and Qemulator with only WIN containers (also access to windows dirs), but no internal floppy drive.

Serial (actually through USB on the PC side) transfer from/to these two worlds is both slow and unreliable (my experiments to day).

Thus, hopingly, I bought recently an external floppy drive connected to the PC by an USB port.

The manual of Qemulator states (and I actually used it) that when addressing a PC floppy drive from within Qemulator, it reads/writes Qdos format.

BUT THIS does not work with my USB external floppy drive ! This device only seems to know of DOS floppies

So, I ask the crowd :

Do you possibly know of a software adding that will let this kind of floppy drives read/write foreign (non DOS) floppies ?

Additional note : In the meantime I updated my QPC licence to QPC2 : in this emulator (which also uses the same WIN containers as Qemulator), my USB drive is OK with DOS format floppies, but still not with Qdos format. So it really seems to be an issue of "lower level firmware" ?

What I can do today :
Write from QPC2 to a DOS floppy and read it under foreign format with SuperMediaManager on the QL

What I cannot do :
write from my QL to a DOS floppy or read a Qdos floppy with my USB floppy drive on the PC.

Is there a way out of it ?

Paul

[vanpeebles]

USB floppy drives are well known for being a bit fussy and also unsupported when it comes to emulation and disk imaging programs. I think it's due to the fact that the disk controller is on the usb drive rather than the motherboard so is not directly assessable.

[tofro]

Additional note : In the meantime I updated my QPC licence to QPC2 : in this emulator (which also uses the same WIN containers as Qemulator), my USB drive is OK with DOS format floppies, but still not with Qdos format. So it really seems to be an issue of "lower level firmware" ?
Paul

Paul,
this is most probably not a case of "make of drive" but instead "make of Windows" (I guess you're using Windows 7 as you seem to have a fairly new computer)

Windows XP was, to my knowledge, the last Windows that officially supported DD floppies (don't know about Vista, though, but I guess 720kB support whas dropped with Vista).
(Note, although you can't seem to format 720k floppies on XP from the GUI it works for me from the DOS command prompt [format a: /F:720]). It also seems to help if the disk is actually formatted on the QL

I have an external USB floppy that reads, writes and even formats QL floppies perfectly when using QPC2 under XP - The very same drive fails miserably on the very same computer on Windows 7 and QPC2.

Very short solution: Downgrade to XP!

Cheers,
Tobias

[polka]

No, I am still using XP. what is your make and model of floppy drive ?

OK, you gave me an idea of new tests :

I just tried to display the directory of an old (actually several) 720K DOS floppy both under windows (my XP) and from a dos prompt ; either way, it does not work.

Whereas the same test with any of my old 1440K DOS floppies goes all right !

So, is it because of my USB floppy drive or of my Windows XP ? I don't know, but now it seems hopeless.

Paul

[tofro]

Then it's really the drive, probably.
It might not help you much, but I have a Fuji external USB drive that works with QPC2/XP.

Tobias

[polka]

Yes, I re-read the manual :

This drive can be installed on Windows XP or Windows Vista or Mac OS X or later (page 5)

and it should support following format disks (page 6)
• 2HD Floppy Disk: 1.44 MB
• 2HD Floppy Disk: 1.25 MB
• 2DD Floppy Disk: 720 KB

So maybe it's simply the "type of disk" palper (opposite to the "write protect" palper) that is not working.

I will send it back for exchange, and hopefully when I receive a functional one, it will also accept 720KB Qdos floppies with Qemulator and QPC2 !

Useful forum for getting ideas solving problems...

Bye, Paul

[RWAP]

The issue is that Windows XP and Windows 7 lack any real built in support for 720K floppy disk drives, although it is still available through DOS.

I have had mixed results in reading / writing DD disk drives with an external USB floppy disk drive - the main issue is that you cannot load replacement Windows drivers for an external USB drive as the disk controller is built into the actual external disk drive unit - that means none of the floppy disk imaging software, or improved DD drivers for foreign disk access work!

The best bet is to try formatting a DD disk first under Windows - open a DOS box -> go to Start and in Run enter cmd

Then try the following DOS command:

FORMAT a: /t:80 /n:9

That will see if your external disk can format DD disks.

You may find that q-emulator and QPC2 can then start reading QL formatted DD disks (at least until you reset the PC or put a HD disk in the drive).

It is very ropey and not at all reliable unfortunately !!

[polka]

OK, I will try this too, I have time as I intended send it back only on Monday ; but even if the driver is on the drive, the manual says that it should understand (read-write) DOS DD floppies, and actually, it does not. So, if your thing does not work either with the drive that I have, it may be firstly because it is faulty. when I get new one which understands DOS DD floppies, then it will be still time to see how it works with Qdos floppies.

Thanks, Paul

[polka]

Today, I solved all my problems (of data exch. between QLs an emulators) for free :

My daughter gave me her former (student) PC, about twelve years old :

It runs only at 330MHz
It has only 128Mb RAM
and only 4.64 Gb disk space
and only a 1024x768 dislpay
It has 2 USB plugs but only 1.1
and a CD only drive that reads only

BUT :

It has an A: DD/HD floppy drive, that supports Qdos floppies
it has a real COM port
a real parallel port that sports also my ext. IOzip drive
a real sVGA plug
...and also a built in Ethernet and Modem (no Wifi... however, 2 PCMCIA slots that may be used)

It has everything needed for "vintage computing" that today computers don't.

Halleluia !

Paul

[vanpeebles]

I might have some more memory for you spare if you know what the motherboard is?