We have a Rank Xerox 64K computer with a lot of information in Compsoft DMS, Compsoft Delta and Micropro Wordstar Version 3.00 on 8" floppy disks (750K, double sided double density).
We would like to transfer this information (as well as the programs) onto 3.5" disks (1Mb, double sided) for use on our Amstrad 2086 PC compatible.
Is it possible to transfer this ourselves? Or is there an agency that does this kind of thing? Or is it a case of a massive re- typing for the information and scrapping the programs?
Mr J G Wadsworth,
Chorley.
As far as the software goes you may as well scrap it. It will not run on the Amstrad, even if you could convert the disk formats. The software available for the Amstrad should be so much better so you are unlikely to want to stick with it for long anyway.
Getting the data from one format to the other should be quite an easy matter. There are a number of bureau which claim to offer an any-format to any format conversion service - for a price. A.L Downloading Services (081-994 6471) can probably handle the disk format conversions you need, but this is only half the problem.
As the Amstrad PC will be using different software you will not be able to use your existing data files as they stand, with the exception of the Wordstar documents which should read directly into newer versions of Wordstar or any other word processor capable of reading this industry standard format. The database files may well prove to be completely useless if you simply have them to 3.5" disk.
A solution to this problem I have used many times in the past is to connect wire the two machines together. By using the printer port on the Xerox one to some suitable communications port on the Amstrad you can print all the records from the database on the Xerox and capture them at the other end as a text file. With a suitably tweaked report layout and a bit of massaging at the other end you should end up with a file which can be imported into most reasonably good database packages.
This method is obviously easier if you have a serial printer on the Xerox, but any competent computer engineer should be able persuade a parallel interface to work - the Amstrad's parallel port is capable of reading as well as writing. If you don't fancy writing software to read a printer port you can always place a parallel to serial printer adaptor along the line.
A straight disk conversion may be possible, but the trick with the printer port tends to produce data in a form usable by software on the new machine. Any consultant worth his fee should be able to establish a link and dump a a reasonable number of diskettes worth in a day.
Richard Taylor
Digital research dropped concurrent CP/M (the multi-tasking multi-user version of their once highly popular operating system) about a year ago. Try the Software Mail Order Group on 0488 681166.
I have recently obtained an Olivetti M24 computer. It has 256K of memory, 1 5.25" floppy drive, 1 21Mb hard disk and a monochrome display.Prior to purchasing, the machine worked perfectly in all respects. However, after transporting it the hard disk is not accessible. Although on the start-up self-test it is recognised as being present, CHKDSK results in a 'Non-DOS disk error reading drive C:' and FDISK shows 'Error reading fixed disk'.
As there is no 'PARK' instruction for the hard disk I assumed that it would be safe to transport it.
Someone has informed me of a program to reformat hard disks at 'low level'. Is it possible to recover using such a program and what is this called?
Failing this, would any replacement hard disk be suitable?
Nigel Hart
London.
It is difficult to recommend a course of action for dealing with this dead hard disk without more clues as to why it does not work. Low-level formatting is a last resort, normally applied when a drive is incompatible with the controller or has been severely damaged by rogue software. As the drive in question has worked in its present configuration and you have obviously not been running any software - rogue or otherwise - I would suspect a hardware problem first.
The first stage is to check the cables to the drive. These may have become dislodged during shipping. The machine may know of the existence of a hard disk without being able to communicate with it so do not pay too much attention to the power-up tests. If the cables are present and correct try listening to the drive.
Can you hear it starting to spin? Do you hear the heads jumping about? Does it rattle? If there is no sound of the mechanism starting and coming up to speed it may be that the heads are stuck to the disk surface. This can happen on old machines, especially if they have been in storage - even a few days rest can cause sticking on a previously active drive. This stops the drive from spinning and the heads from moving. You can free the heads by tapping the side of the unit, turning the drive by hand or even moving the head stepper manually. If you are unlucky this will cause the heads to break off but it is a kill-or-cure method I've used in the past with much success.
If you hear an awful rattle from the unit it is probably that you have damaged the bearings in transit - this fault is not worth repairing on such a small drive.
Parking heads prior to shipment is not normally necessary. Modern Winchesters with voice-coil head positioning all auto-park. You may have a unit with a band stepper, but failing to park it once is most unlikely to be the cause of your problem.
If you do want to try a low-level format there is probably software built into the controller for doing this. However, this varies from controller to controller so I would need more details of this - and of the drive - before I could tell you how to use it.
Robin Venables, Cheshire -
In playing around with System 7 on my Mac I've found a couple of keypress combinations which do some very useful things:
Under System 6 and MultiFinder I used to live in fear of a single application crashing on me. If the application I was using went down there was no way of switching from it to something else, and I would have to reset the Mac losing all of the application in memory and all of my work in progress. Apart from saving my work often, there was nothing else that I could do.
System 7 is slightly more robust, and I've found that it is possible to kill the offending application and return to the Finder. You do this by pressing Command-Option-Escape. A dialog box will appear, asking you if you want to force the application to quit and return to the Finder.
By returning to the Finder, you keep control of your Mac and only lose the work in one application. It is also possible to restart a badly behaved Finder, by bringing up the dialog box while in the Finder itself.
All Macs have a small area of memory that is permanent - the contents are not lost thanks to an on-board battery. This memory, or Parameter RAM (PRAM) holds configuration settings essential to the Mac, such as the time and date and a number of pieces of information vital to the Finder. Occasionally, you may want to clear this memory. On the early, original one-piece Macs this was easy - you just reached around the back and pulled the battery out. Thanks to the upright position of the battery and the ease with which the cover got lost, you could spend more time scrabbling around under the desk for the battery and putting it V:F7 back in!
Now that the battery is long-life and in a holder on the motherboard, you have two choices if you need to reset the PRAM:
Normally, you should never need to restart the Mac in this way. However, with a very sick machine it can be useful.
Lloyd Wood
Although 3.5" floppy disk drives are almost standard for new off- the-shelf PCs, there are still a large number of users who have 5.25@ drives installed in their machines. Cautious users still specify twin drives on new machines hoping to continue to use their existing stock of 5.25" media.
However, there are still to relatively incompatible formats in 5.25@ disks -3660K and 1.2M. Their so-called compatibility is limited to upward-compatible which means a 1.2M drive can read and write 360K disks but not vice versa. To add more confusion, users discovered that once a 380K disk has been written to by a 1.2M drive there is almost no chance of it being used by a 360K drive again. This is caused by the 1.2M drive having a narrower head than the 360K units so the magnetic track written is not wide enough to cover the area required for tracks on 360K disks.
Formatting the 360K disk on a 360K drive before using a 1.2M drive does not help. It may still be unreadable after access by the 1.2M drive.
I cannot offer a perfect solution to this problem, however there is a practice I use which has proved to be reliable:
Just before releasing a 360K disk which has been modified on a 1.2M drive use diskcopy to copy itself back onto itself a few times with the command:
[mono] diskcopy a: a: [normal]
Keep the disk in the drive when the target disk is requested. Usually three times is sufficient. If you have access to a 360K drive you can confirm the success of the operation by performing a diskcopy on the 360K drive. If the entire disk can be read you may as well finish the copy. However, if it reports a read error V:F7 you will have to break out by pressing Ctrl-C. Do not complete the operation or information will be lost. This would only work provided that your 360K disk was first formatted on a 360K drive.
If everything fails, format a 360K disk using a 360K drive and then diskcopy the original onto it using the 1.2M drive. Some parts of the procedure may need to be repeated a few times in extreme cases.
Henry Chang,
Bioengineering Dept,
The Rayne Institute.
The incompatibility between high and low density 5.25" disk drives steams from the fact that the number of tracks was increased from 40 to 80 over the same area. When a 360K format track is erased (for re-writing) on a high density drive it is, in effect, only zapping half the possible area - leaving an image which can creep in and confuse a low density drive with its less accurate track alignment.
The problem does not exist with high and low density 3.5" drives because the extra capacity was achieved by doubling the number of sectors on each track, leaving track number and positions the same.
Newer 5.25" drives do not suffer from these incompatibilities, but this is cold comfort if you have an old one!
Frank Leonhardt.