Message-Id: <199712101915.NAA00646@endeavor.flash.net>
To: <ben DOT jemmett AT ukonline DOT co DOT uk>
From: "Cross+Road's" <mwarchol AT flash DOT net>
CC: <opendos AT delorie DOT com>
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 14:15:17 +0500
Subject: Re: Questions About DRIVPARM and TaskMgr
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  By this I assume that you mean that "no" 8088 will operate a high density
drive no matter make or model?
                                Mark

On 1997-12-09 ben DOT jemmett AT ukonline DOT co DOT uk said:
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   >>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