Help Needed: Kaypro 10 HDD Problems

From: Grant Zozman <gzozman_at_escape.ca>
Date: Tue May 12 20:09:59 1998

Thanks for all the help so far :-)

To address the questions people have asked:

I have a program called FORMAT06.COM supplied on the original CP/M Autoload disks for the Kaypro. It
seems to do a high level format (similar to DOS's FORMAT command). However when I run it, I get "Verify
errors", so it does not seem capable of overcoming the problems the drive has.

I do have PUTSYS and PUTOVL, and have executed them. Interestingly enough, they don't report any
errors. However, as Don Maslin noted, these should be run after the drive is formatted, so at this
point I don't think these utilities can solve my problem. In any case, I would suspect that if this was
the only problem, I would still be able to pull up a directory of the hard drive (I can't); I just
wouldn't be able to boot from it.

Some have mentioned that the Tandon drive I have is not original, and that I should look for a Seagate
(ST225 has been recommended), Shugart, or Microscience drive. Would I be able to use any 10MB MFM drive
in place of the Tandon TM502? I am wondering specifically about physical size, location of mounting
screws, and the connectors used. If someone has a good working drive (or knows where one can be
sourced), please let me know. I am willing to pay a fair price for one.

Bill and Allison, you mentioned that I might attempt a low level format. Barring physical damage on the
disk, this sounds like the most likely cause of my problems; maybe the heads got bumped slightly out of
alignment in shipping, and therefore cannot find the servo tracks any longer. I would like to try a low
level format, but am not sure what the utility would be called. I have searched all the CP/M disks I
have, and have turned up no programs which would indicate that they do a low level format. Would this
utility have been supplied with CP/M? None of the books I have on CP/M mention anything about low level
formatting (although most of them are too old to cover hard drives!). Any ideas on where I can find
this utility would be welcome! If someone has a copy on a floppy, I would be more than willing to pay a
fair price for your efforts to get a copy to me.
Received on Tue May 12 1998 - 20:09:59 BST