Date   : Wed, 08 Nov 2006 18:57:44 +0000
From   : hideki.adam@... (adam colley)
Subject: DFS on 3.5inch - Is this supposed to work?

Hi

On 08/11/06, Jason Watton <jason.watton@...> wrote:
> IMHO the BIOS only contains parameters for the 'standard' DOS formats, and
> if you talk to the FDC directly the BIOS can be safely ignored.

Right, which is what tools like Omniflop and FDC do

> Which gives me this final thought... Are PCs being branded 'not working'
> based on poor BIOS support? For all of the above, I'm not talking about
> using DOS INTs and the BIOS to handle alien disk formats - I'm talking about
> taking over complete control of the PC's FDC and programming the chip
> directly. Nothing less than this is of any consequence.

I think they must be because I know that most PCs will read and write
DFS disks flawlessly with the right software regardless of people in
here insisting otherwise, heh, even my old 486 thinkpad manages it.

> If anyone can provide evidence/statistics I *would* like to know... (plus
> the software used!).

Well I've not found a PC that doesn't work, I'm sure a few exist but I
suspect they're greatly outnumbered by the working ones, this all
sounds like a PEBKAC problem to me...

http://www.shlock.co.uk/Utils/OmniFlop/OmniFlop.htm

That's your best bet in XP, completely replaces the FDC driver with
something that isn't broken, if you're using an ancient DOS machine
for the task then you might want to try something else.. I know I used
FDC once but I think that went only one way and  I can't remember
which -.o;

-- 
Hideki.Adam