Re: [MiNT] Floppy problem with 1.16 alpha ?

["Brian J. Roland" <bjr@localink4.com>]

Martin,

I too experience floppy drive problems with my CT2b.  Not only with MiNT, but
also with other workstation set-ups.

You might try the FLOPFIX.PRG (should be on your Falcon System Disk) in the auto
folder.  I'm not sure what this does exactly...
I randomly enable it to see if it helps...
So far I can't tell.

One thing that seems to help somewhat.
If you have any kind of background floppy stuff, or caches enabled, disable
them.

I.E. MagiC/HDDriver's background DMA floppy.  Geneva's background floppy
options.  Write cache set up under MiNT, etc.

I think MiNT comes set up to cache all disk write activity (as most preemtive
multitasking systems do) so you can continue working while disk drives do their
thing.  The disk cache waits for time slices like any other application and
writes when it's turn cycles around.  Use MiNT Setter to experiment with
settings that might smooth out some of your problem.

Another thing I've found...
When using SCSIDRV based devices (Such as Dynalink Ethernet with STinG), the
floppy will fail unless the ethernet driver is disabled (via the STinG CPX).

If you know you'll be doing lots of floppy based things in a work session, try
enabling the DSP and IDE wait states either from the bios screen, or with the
appropriate CT2 *.prg utilities.

Also, the screen resolution seems to make a difference.  I get fewer floppy
problems the lower the screen resolution (less colors/pixils/etc).

Also, I've just run into more and more bad disks lately...

Hope this helps,
Brian