Xfloppy

[guibrush]

Hi, I'm new to this Forum and to the X68000 to... I would like to ask you somthing because I can't find the information on the net (or maybe in japanese, but I don't read japanes :-))

I've got an X68000 XVI compact and the only one disk that I have is a copy of Human 68k. This disk boot great each time, so I think its mean that the drive is ok. Now I've tried to make some disk to feed the machine, and I have found this little program that only work on win me an previous : xfloppy. I pick up a xdf file and write it to a 3.5 inch disk : It doesen't boot.

then I make another try to test the concept : I make a xdf image from my human 68k disk and write it back to a new disk. It doesen't boot too. So, now my two questions :

1. It is possible to write a 5.25 xdf image disk on a 3.5 disk and read it on the XVI compact with xflopy (or another soft) ?

2. Is there another way to feed the XVI, because I think all games are on 5.25, so I don't think I can find a "real" game for this machine to buy ?

Thank you in advance for your help !

Guibrush from Switzerland

[Computolio]

    This is interesting. Have you tried writing to the disk twice and checking the "format disk" option? If it still isn't working you probably need a 3-Mode drive.

    3-Mode drives are impossible to find in the West, I know, but I'm 100% certain that there's a few normal drives floating around that can be jumpered into 3-Mode.

    3-Mode drives are different from regular high-density drives in that they support a rotation speed of 300RPM in addition to the standard 360 RPM. This allows them to behave exactly like high-density 5.25 drives so that a machine originally designed for 5.25 drives can use 3.5 drives without any major software or hardware changes. 3-mode formatted disks have the same capacity and sector layout as normal high-density 5.25 disks.

[genocho]

First a question:

The floppy you use for copy human x68 disk is formatted at 1,44 mb with your windows pc or you use xfloppy to format the 3,5 disk at the correct format ?

I think the problem is the format of the disk you can use to make the human 68k copy.

I try to explain me:

First try to make an exact copy of your human x68 floppy disk. When I say exact I want to say exact.

I think the compact x68000 runs with 3,5 disk yes, but with 3,5 disks formatted at 1,2mb, that explains when you make a copy the disk don´t boot.

You can format a 3,5 disk at 1,2 mb by many ways. One is the tricky bios mode. Enter in your pc bios and set a: at 1,2mb.  Some motherboards have in bios this option:



if your bios have it, don´t select a: at 1,2 mb or try first with 3 mode enable with a: at 1,44.

Then use xfloppy to make the rest of the copy files.  I assume you have an msdos computer or a win98 well configured. Xfloppy dont run on xp, vista etc.

Other way is using the superb windows program called winimage:

http://www.winimage.com/download.htm

This program make exact copys of floppies and can write back again. You can try to copy your human x68 floppy disk with this program and try to analizate wich format of disk is. If is 1,2mb that the reason why don´t boot your copy disk. If is 1,44........I have no idea how works.

Tell us something if you try it or if you find the way to use 3,5 floppies in your compact machine. I´m interested in discover this too.

Regards.