CAT shows empty disc after saving the same .BAS file multiple times.

[giorgos]

Hi forum!
Ι've observed the following strange behavior.

Some months ago I bought a couple of 3" disks sealed and new. I started using them and they seemed OK. I was writing and testing some BASIC programs, and out of fear of losing data, I saved the same BAS program often. After a couple of days, the disc started acting up, it would not show some files, or it would show errors in the listing that was not previously there, like a miniature data corruption, until the disc would not show anything when I issued a CAT command, but it would show that it had 145K left. I chalked it up to the disc and/or the drive, ordered zaxxon's budget USB floppy and forgot about it.

Yesterday, I had the same thing happened with the USB. I was writing something in BASIC and was saving it repeatedly. It produced the usual .BAK files, and at some point, it created a .$$$. I deleted the .BAK files, but after a few moments, CAT would show no files again. Granted, the USB floppy is fidgety, and I had multiple times when it didn't load a game correctly, or show 'disc missing' error messages, but to have the DSK image in the USB go corrupt in the same way as the physical discs had, is a bit suspicious and strange.

What do you think? is it due to a hardware error, or is it that when you SAVE multiple times a file, the disc gets corrupted for some reason?

PS: Very happy to be here!

[Bryce]

Have you been messing around with the user command?

Bryce.

[giorgos]

Hey Bryce, no, I don't even know of a 'user' command to be honest :-)
What does it do?

[Bryce]

https://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/AMSDOS#.7CUSER

Bryce.

[giorgos]

Ah, that one, I remembered now.
No, just straightforward SAVEs.

Maybe if someone could reproduce it?
Just remembered that before failing, there was a message akin to "disc changed, closing in" or something like that, didn't note it down unfortunately.
Also doing some |user,x commands, I see a single "." file with 12K of size in some "user areas" like 3,4,5

I'm really at odds as to why zaxxon refuses to make a expansion port cable for the floppy emulator and sticks to this design, which is troublesome to say the least.

[Bryce]

What is the code in your BAS program? Are you perhaps experimenting with the open in / open out commands?

Bryce.

[ComSoft6128]

If you can post a .dsk file I'll check it on a 3" drive and Gotek.

[giorgos]

If you can post a .dsk file I'll check it on a 3" drive and Gotek.

Hey, thanks a lot ComSoft128! I'll post it this evening when I'm done from work.

[giorgos]

What is the code in your BAS program? Are you perhaps experimenting with the open in / open out commands?

Bryce.

Just simple PRINTs and INPUTs, nothing fancy.

[giorgos]

If you can post a .dsk file I'll check it on a 3" drive and Gotek.

Hey, thanks a lot ComSoft128! I'll post it this evening when I'm done from work.

I posted the .DSK image in Google drive
Thanks again!

[ComSoft6128]

Hi @giorgos ,

can you post it here as an attachment?

[giorgos]

Hi @ComSoft6128, sorry about that, I was in quick reply, and couldn't find the attachment button..

[ComSoft6128]

OK,

Your disc is system format (?) with files(?) in user areas 2 - 11 (?)

[ComSoft6128]

Download this:

https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=15009

And see if you can Load & Run the files OK.

[giorgos]

Download this:

https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=15009

And see if you can Load & Run the files OK.

I can. Some times I get a disc missing error message, but as soon as I fidget the USB floppy towards my side, it loads everything OK.
The DSK image with the "lost" files still doesn't work. I suspect it had a data error problem when it was saving the files, and random stuff got written into disc.

[skylas]

I dont know if I can help, I would like to add what has happened to me as for .$$$ files.

If you try to save a BAS file and the disk is full, then you receive a disk full message. This works ok if there is almost no space.

But: If you want to save eg a program of 21kb, and there is 17kb available, then, Amstrad will start writing in these 17kb and then you will receive a <full disk> message. In that case, the already written space in the disk will have a .$$$ extension and this file will not be working.

Example in screenshot.

[MaV]

Here's a disk on behalf of our former member tastefulmrship.

He sends his kind regards. The only file he couldn't get to load is chronos.bas.