Got 8" drive on PC working

[Randy McLaughlin]

From: "Vintage Computer Festival" <vcf at siconic.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2005 12:56 AM
> On Sat, 5 Mar 2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote:
>
>> Trying to use 80 tracks can destroy your drive.
>>
>> STOP IT!!!!
>
> M'kay.
>
>> You should NEVER use it to boot DOS unless you get Open-DOS and create a
>> driver for 8".
>
> Why?  It works fine.

PC's assume the drive has 80 tracks, 8" drives only have 77 tracks.

The drive has a sensor that limits track 00 but no sensor for track 77.

When you format the disk it starts at track 00 and tries to go to track 79 
(80 tracks total).  After track 76 (the 77th track) the stepper motor tries 
to continue to step.  This can damage the head or head alignment.

Some drives (such as Persci's) can do significant physical damage to the 
drive.

You may want to clean your drive heads again if you started having more 
errors.  Also clean the rails the head assembly rides on.


Randy
www.s100-manuals.com