Heathkit CP/M - ** Error ** Drive Not Ready

[norby]

I just received a new HxC SD controller. It works fine under my H89 with the Z37 controller under HDOS 2.0 and it is very solid. However the HxC seems that it was never tested under CP/M as it fails to format immediately with the following error message: ** Error ** Drive Not Ready.

I did try all possible setting in the HxC and it always fails. The HxC controller FW is : v1.8.2.40. If I used a real 3.5" floppy drive it works fine with CP/M, but not with this HxC controller. I'm very disappointed that is does not work under CP/M, but I'm impressed that it works fine under Heathkit HDOS 2.0.

Help needed to get this working with Heathkit CP/M.
Norby

[Jeff]

I just received a new HxC SD controller. It works fine under my H89 with the Z37 controller under HDOS 2.0 and it is very solid. However the HxC seems that it was never tested under CP/M as it fails to format immediately with the following error message: ** Error ** Drive Not Ready.

I did try all possible setting in the HxC and it always fails. The HxC controller FW is : v1.8.2.40. If I used a real 3.5" floppy drive it works fine with CP/M, but not with this HxC controller. I'm very disappointed that is does not work under CP/M, but I'm impressed that it works fine under Heathkit HDOS 2.0.

Help needed to get this working with Heathkit CP/M.
Norby

If this is just an format issue, just make an image from you working floppy disk with the hxc tool (or any other tool) and convert to hfe. Let me know if this workaround works for you.
There is maybe some CPM img file available somewhere for this machine ?

[norby]

Hello Jeff,

I inserted a bootable CP/M 3.5" floppy media and I was able to read it without any problems. Then I exported such contents into an hfe file. Did the same process for the HDOS 2.0 floppy media.

The HDOS 2.0 hfe booted fine.
The CP/M hfe failed to boot.

Thanks,
Norberto

[Jeff]

Share the HFE files otherwise i can't advice/help.

[norby]

I booted from my hard drive and was able to read and write to the CP/M hfe file without any issues, but I was not able to boot. Then I proceed from the hard drive to copy the BIOS.sys again into the hfe file. This time the CP/M hfe file booted fine.

I cannot attached the hfe files to the message box. I zipped them 256kb and it complains that is too big. How can I add files????

Thanks for your support.

Norberto

[Jeff]

send me them to hxc2001 at hxc2001.com

[norby]

Done and thanks for all your support!

[Jeff]

I am not sure how works the CPM boot process but it look like there is no boot sector code on this CP/M image. Is the original floppy bootable ? How did you make this image ?

[norby]

Jeff,

I went back and repeated same process again using another 3.5" floppy media. This time it worked fine and booted from the hfe file. It seems that previous media went bad for some reason. I will send you the CP/M bootable hfe file.

The only issue I have with CP/M is that I cannot format it when I boot from my hard drive. Could it be that CP/M sees the drive WP for some reason? What I can do in order to help you trouble shoot this issue?

Thanks,
Norberto

[Jeff]

Jeff,

I went back and repeated same process again using another 3.5" floppy media. This time it worked fine and booted from the hfe file. It seems that previous media went bad for some reason. I will send you the CP/M bootable hfe file.

The only issue I have with CP/M is that I cannot format it when I boot from my hard drive. Could it be that CP/M sees the drive WP for some reason? What I can do in order to help you trouble shoot this issue?

Thanks,
Norberto

Send me the failed formatted image to hxc2001 at hxc2001.com

[norby]

Files send!