Imaging 100TPI 77 track Exidy Sorcerer disks on a Micropolis 100TPI

[exidyboy]

I didn't use any commands. Just the GUI.
Thanks for the tip on post-processing the preservation streams.

[ZrX]

Pretty sure some options in the GUI clashed that causes incorrect operation when preservations dump with imagefile was requested.

[exidyboy]

Yes it looks as though no all multiple format combinations are valid.
Can you a DM you a link to get a quick sanity check on the preservation streams for one disk?

[ZrX]

Sure. I'm pretty sure I have checked some Exidy material in the past aswell.

[exidyboy]

Yes you were very helpful with the 10 sector hard sector disks. PM sent.

[ZrX]

Unfortunately that disk is just empty or something has wiped it in the past.

[exidyboy]

Thanks for taking a look at the streams. I'll service the drive and try a couple of other 100TPI mechanisms as this floppy was OK some months ago.

[ZrX]

There was a fainth pattern suggesting something singlesided existed on the floppy. Perhaps dirty head then. Sometimes it could be that nothing is read from a disk and nothing is visible on the head yet it is dirty.

[exidyboy]

I have tried another 77 track drive. Firstly I would like to try and get to the bottom of the "Error: Could not communicate with floppy drive" error in my OP.

You can see three instances of running dtc -c2

Line A: is an 80 track double-sided 3.5inch drive that I have been using for some Amiga floppies.
Line B: The second is another 77 track 100TPI single sided Micropolis drive which Kryoflux thinks has 40? tracks.
Line C: The third is the drive I was using in my OP which gives an error even though it does seek back and forth.

I would be interested in your thoughts. I have PM'd you a link to the stream files created with B: using the same floppy discussed in the OP.

[SomeGuy]

B is just because the Kryoflux software does not know about 77 track drives. It tries to seek to the 80th track, fails, and assumes a 40 track drive. As long as you manually specify 77 as the max tracks in the GUI, you should be OK reading disks, although there could be issues writing.

On C, however I think you are going to have to take a closer look at the signaling coming from your drive. For the seek test, it seems like the only output it would look at would be the track zero line, since this test can work without even having a disk in the drive. If it seeks, then the inputs should be working. When it seeks, does the head seem to move smoothly, or does the movement seem irregular? If it is not smooth, then the step rate could be too high. (Although the Kryoflux software does not allow changing that, but defaults to a farly low, compatible, step rate) When you start the test, does it seek out and back in more than once? If it does, then the drive might not like the attempt to step beyond the last track.