MS-DOS 1.25 System Disk Factoryf.cmd

1986 · utility · diagnostic · recovery · MS-DOS · Victor Technologies, Inc.

.pl68 Dear Ernst, Here are two disks which can be used to format a raw hard drive in the Victor. The following info may be of help. -1MS-DOS BOOTABLE DISK-0 This disk contains the file FACTORYF.CMD, a menu driven program which seems to work fine on the Tandon 502 drive which has 2 platters and 4 heads. I have also used it successfully with the NEC D5124 hard drive but it failed to format a Miniscribe single platter 2 head drive which I got into awful trouble with, the eventual solution being to reuse that drive in an IBM clone where such rare magical software is unnecessary. In most cases you can select a 502 drive at the menu prompt and hit a (1) if in doubt at other prompts (Billy's formula), enter a (no) to adding tracks to the bad list. The formatting procedure sets up a '1223' bad track for diagnostic purposes. HDFIXUP takes any other bad tracks and hides them. The hints below may be helpful if you are groping around blind, without documentation and particularly if you are as adventurous as I am (a definite disadvantage in this area!) If your HD is healthy, don't run unnecessary diagnostics on it from the two disks supplied, you might wipe-out the Label and if its a 1 platter 2 head HD like my miniscribe was, you'll end up feeling sorry for yourself! Victor screen error code 98 means no label exists on the hard disk. Don't try the FACTORYF software unless you are positive there is no label. -1CPM BOOTABLE DISKETTE-0 Contains some more interesting and potentially dangerous diagnostic software. Unfortunately this software did not work with my Miniscribe HD no matter what I tried. Any info on how to format a raw single platter 2 head HD with either of these two disks would be appreciatively received. Good Luck, Ed. P.S. I have enclosed 10 disks and US$20.00 covering postage incl $3.95 postage on the package already sent (NDISK 1-9). Please also deduct 5 diskettes to cover the 5 already mailed. Drop me a note with the Newsdisks when I should send more $'s. Could I share the cost of any useful ramdisk & print-buffer s/ware with you? Best regards..