Focus Card Problems

["David\\Julie Wilson" <cybrslider@home.com>]

Hi all,

    I've got a problem with a FocusDrive card. First, I bought one back in
April. Attached a known working drive to it. Stuck it in slot 7 (in a IIgs).
Nothing. Machine won't even boot. Pull it out, it boots fine. The slot was
set to 'your card'. I stuck the card back into slot 7 and changed the
startup from scan to slot 6. Same thing. Changed the startup from slot 6 to
5. Then it would begin to boot GSOS but would crash to the monitor. I moved
the card to slot 6. Changed the setting from disk port to your card. Powered
off. Turned it back on. It booted from the 3.5 disk. Started the focus
format application and it told me the hardcard had been located in slot 6
but the slot was not set to your card. I double checked it and it was still
set on your card. Pulled the card from slot 6 to slot 2. Then it would boot
but it takes about 5 or 6 minutes. I started the Focus formatter. It saw the
card in slot 2. Didn't get the 'slot not set to your card' error. I got an
error when I tried to format it ($8080). I got this error before with
another Focus card I had and this same IBM drive. I put a jumper on it and
that solved the problem. The jumper was there already. So I removed it. It
took about 5 or 6 minutes for my machine to boot. I loaded up the Focus
formatter again. It took the formatter an unusually long time to start up
and tell me I had to format the drive to continue. I got the same error when
trying to format it again. Put the jumper back on in the only other position
it could go in. Same thing. Even if would work in slot 2, the machine boots
much quicker than 5 or 6 minutes from a floppy! I had the focus driver on my
boot floppy in the drivers folder. I tried moving it out of that folder so
it wouldn't get loaded into memory. When I did that, it didn't take as long
to boot but, it booted 'weird'. The bar that indicates how much of the OS
has loaded (status bar?) when GSOS is loading only filled in about one
one-hundredth of the length of the bar.

    I had another Focus card that I bought about a year ago. I had this same
drive attached to it right before I sold it about a week ago. It worked
great. No problems what so ever. Attached it to this new card and all the
problems. I pulled the drive from the card, re-installed it in my laptop,
and partitioned it with PC DOS fdisk. Formatted it, installed DOS on it.
Booted the laptop from it. Ran chkdsk. No problems. Put it back on the
hardcard and I was back to square one. Since I've had this drive working on
a Focus card before, I can't believe it wouldn't work with this new card. I
tried another drive (not a known working one although the person that sold
it to me says it works) with the same results.

    Another thing I've noticed is that the drive activity light on the
hardcard NEVER lights up. I also cannot hear the drive spinning at all.

    I called Alltech. They sent me a new card. I'm having the same problem.
Except, the machine will boot with the card in slot 7 now. It still takes
about 5 or 6 minutes for it to boot. It does the same thing in both of my
IIgs machines. One is a Rom 01 with a 1 meg ram card and no other cards. The
other is a Rom 03 with a 1 meg ram card and no other cards.

    Could there possibly be something wrong with both of my machines? Is it
possible they have changed something on the card's rom that makes it now not
work with a drive it worked with before (albeit, a different focus card)?
Could it be they sent me two bad cards in a row (at the same time I received
the first card, I also received one 2 meg and one 4 meg ram card from them.
The 4 meg card had a bad IC on it)? Could it be that it rained on Tuesday
and on the same day my mother-in-law's dogs pooped on her living room floor?

    Thanks for the help.

David