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!
Have you been messing around with the user command?
Bryce.
Hey Bryce, no, I don't even know of a 'user' command to be honest :-)
What does it do?
https://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/AMSDOS#.7CUSER
Bryce.
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.
What is the code in your BAS program? Are you perhaps experimenting with the open in / open out commands?
Bryce.
If you can post a .dsk file I'll check it on a 3" drive and Gotek.
Quote from: ComSoft6128 on 09:28, 18 March 22If 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.
Quote from: Bryce on 08:58, 18 March 22What 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.
Quote from: giorgos on 09:46, 18 March 22Quote from: ComSoft6128 on 09:28, 18 March 22If 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 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/15Xs6cTTApJxvLKaKXhdbJrCAMFUtE1og/view?usp=sharing)
Thanks again!
Hi
@giorgos ,
can you post it here as an attachment?
Hi
@ComSoft6128, sorry about that, I was in quick reply, and couldn't find the attachment button..
OK,
Your disc is system format (?) with files(?) in user areas 2 - 11 (?)
Download this:
https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=15009
And see if you can Load & Run the files OK.
Quote from: ComSoft6128 on 16:02, 18 March 22Download 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.
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.
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.