From:	"Ben A L Jemmett" <ben DOT jemmett AT ukonline DOT co DOT uk>
To:	<opendos AT delorie DOT com>
Subject:	Re: Questions About DRIVPARM and TaskMgr
Date:	Tue, 9 Dec 1997 18:32:03 -0000
Message-ID:	<01bd04d0$bf5b9200$LocalHost@highscreen>
MIME-Version:	1.0

>I have two questions. First, I have an old, old, old 8088. I recently
>installed a 3 1/2 disk drive on it. 720K disks work fine, but I get a
>"sector not found" error or "general error" when trying to use 1.44 MB
>disks.
Old, old, old 8088 - XT or previous, I assume.  XTs and previous models
can't handle drives above 720K - the data seperator on the FDD controller
can't handle the data rates from 1.44 and 1.2 Mb drives - this is why you
get sector not found errors, as the sector marks fly by too fast for the
controller to spot them.  This is certainly the reason Amstrad PC1512 and
1640's can't hack newer drives, anyway.

> Using the /I switch on DRIVPARM is supposed to install some sort
>of software driver to allow old BIOSes to access 1.44 MB drives. The
>/I switch is documented in DOSBook, but when I actually add it in the
>CONFIG.SYS file, I get an error when OpenDOS starts. What happend to
>the I switch?
Don't know about the switch, but the drive is not handled by the BIOS, so a
BIOS patch won't make your system compatible with high density drives.
Sorry.

Regards,
Ben Jemmett

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