? about Fadal Floppy Drive

Years ago, I remember floppy disk drives having a capacity of 360 kilabytes. This was some time before the 1.44mb floppies came along. During the transition, supposedly the 1.44 flopies could be formmated to run as 360's, if you so chose.

I have a floppy disk, 1.44mb, that I suddenly can't write to. I cannot save a single program to it, no matter how small. The write protect is set correctly, so I know that's not the problem. I suspected the disk was bad, so I did a copy from the old disk to a new disk. Now the new disk has the same problem. I can view this disk just fine, and I can read from the disk just fine, just can't write anything new to it. Not even a word document from the computer.

So, I was wondering if the Fadal was accidently formated to a 360, when it should be 1.4mb? The reason I suspect this, is because on the bad disk, if I put it in my computer and click properties, it says there are 359kb of information on it.

Am I on to something here? Anyone else experience this?

Nobody??

Hello,

Did you try to re-formatt the disk ? Then give it a try. Are the files set to read only ? I have a Fadal 15xt ,1998 and have not seen this problem. Did have a disk reading problem last month , but re-seating the disk cables fixed the problem.
Wish I could be of more help.

Brian

Thanks, Toolz. I tried re-formating the disk, but nothing changed. You also lose all the programs that way, so it's a little risky.

Files set to read only? Did you mean to ask if the disk is set to read only? I don't know how you set a file as a read only. And even if you could, you should still be able to write a new file to the disk. But, the disk is not set to write protect, so there should be no problem writing to the disk.

One thing I did do this morning, is I erased about 10 programs off the disk, and now I can write to the disk again. But I would bet 100 bucks, once it gets to 360 kilobytes of information, it will act as if it's full again.

Hello,

The disk is not formatted as a 360 is it. Check the disk properties from Windows Explorer to see if everthing checks out.

Hello !! Computer guys,a little help !

Post question in " General " would probably get better response.

Brian

Toolz,

I think it is formatted as a 360, but when I look at it on the computer, it only shows 1/4 of the disk is used. I think the Fadal is the only think viewing it as a 360. As I said before, I tried re-formatting it anyway, and it made no difference. I'm wondering if the floppy drive on my fadal was accidently formatted as a 360. Since the Fadal seems to be the problem, I'm not sure general will be a good forum for this.

Dave,

Post as an O/T. There are alot of computer guys on the general forum. Can't hurt.
Curious to know the solution to your problem myself.

Brian

Dave, sorry, just answering from general knowledge and no experience.

the fadal drive isn't formatted to 360. It should handle 360,720,and 1440.


It is no secret that floppy disks tend to crap out pretty frequently. Why not just throw the disk away?

Damonfg,

I guess I wasn't real clear about the whole situation. I can't throw them out because they have about 50 programs on them that I can't afford to lose. I copied all these programs to a new disk, only to have the same problem with the new disk. I tried a third disk, same problem. The disk did not crap out, because if I delete a program or two, I can then write to it again. Until it reaches 360 megabytes of information on it. Then it goes back to the same problem.


Toolz, you're right. I'll try it over in General.

Try this:

Take the disc to a PC and copy files off the disk to the hard drive.

Format a new disk in the PC to 1.44. Copy files back to the new floppy.


Not 100% sure of the problem here, but sometimes files can misreport their file size. I have seen 3.5" floppies that claim to have tens of gigabytes! Possibly there is some bloat in one of the files ? Likely after the second % mark if they still make good parts.

On my Mits FX10K, it will omly read or write to DD (Double Density) disks, at 720K. It is possible to format a HD (1.44Mb) disk as DD. I don't recall seeing 3 1/4 disks at 360k.

The more likely problem is the number of files allowed on the root directory. I have run into this problem several times. Try using sub-directories on your floppy, that works fine.

Cheers!

Roysol,

I guess that seems to be what's wrong. But the fadal won't let me write to the disk under sub-directories. I guess I'm just stuck with it. Doesn't seem like it should be this way though.