Date   : Mon, 13 Nov 2006 10:46:28 -0600
From   : julesrichardsonuk@... (Jules Richardson)
Subject: DFS on 3.5inch - Is this supposed to work?

Jason Watton wrote:
> This is a repost (see below) - I apologise if this made it to the list: I 
> didn't receive it. The two other posts either side of this one worked fine.
> 
> J.
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jason Watton" <jason.watton@...>
> To: "BBC Micro Submit To List" <bbc-micro@...>
> Sent: Sunday, November 12, 2006 10:44 AM
> Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] DFS on 3.5inch - Is this supposed to work?
> 
> 
>> See my previous post on the matter. Lots of personal experience, plus
>> communications with people who earn their living out of doing this sort of
>> thing.
> 
>  I was after *evidence* - something I could use scientifically. Repeating
>  opinions, even from lots of other people, doesn't make 'em true: "The world
>  is flat", "The world is flat", "The world is flat"... lol ;-)

OK... personally I've been through maybe 20 expansion-card disk controllers 
from different manufacturers over the years; none of those would handle FM 
correctly and were broken in a variety of ways.

I've probably been through slightly more PC motherboards that have integrated 
controllers - from those I've found *two* that'll read and write FM reliably 
(but unfortunately one of those - an HP Pavilion - will only support one 
physical drive)

Annoying, but not surprising.

With the exception of a couple of integrated boards (which didn't work) 
though, I've not tried any *new* boards made in the last four years or so; 
I'll try them as and when they fall into my lap, as blindly spending money on 
new boards in the hope that they'll work doesn't seem like a very 
cost-effective thing to do :-) (hence my comments both about deferring to the 
experts as regards to newer boards, and also about hearing from people who 
*have* had success as I was curious as to how old their boards are)

Torch Manta boards *will* do FM, but a) They're not exactly common and b) they 
use a SCSI interface, so aren't exactly so useful for everyone.

The upshot of all that though, what with my experience and with dealings with 
people who make their money out of this, is that *I* think the PC's lack of 
ability is not a rumour in the slightest.

Evidence though? That I can't give you I'm afraid, unless you want a photo of 
non-working systems next time I feel motivated to test a few :-) All I can 
relate is personal experience on the matter (hence this email is really just 
backing up the opinion that I've already given)

>  For this reason I keep a list of FM failures rather than successes. If
>  anyone can supply known failures I want to know...

I've long since skipped all the systems / expansion boards which don't work, 
I'm afraid. If I want any more which almost certainly don't work, I can just 
pick and choose from any number of sources ;-)

As I say, I've got two systems which *do* work - one's that HP Pavilion though 
which only supports one drive (which is of less use to me personally). I can't 
remember what the other one is (although I can check when I'm back in the UK) 
- it's a server-class board with on-board SCSI though, and I'm pretty sure 
it's made by Asus.

cheers

Jules


-- 
And if eight out of ten cats all prefer whiskas
Do the other two prefer Leslie Judd?