Re: HELP!! Vulcan/Copy ][+ error on //e!

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Dave Althoff <dalloff@freenet.columbus.oh.us> wrote:

> ARGHS!!
> 
> I have a reclaimed 20Mb Vulcan GS [...]
> 
> The disk boots fine.  It seems to function beautifully.  Using Copy ][
> Plus 8.3, I attempt to copy some text files from 5.25" floppy to the
> Vulcan, and everything goes haywire.  I get an "I/O ERROR BLOCK $0000".  I
> try running a "Verify Disk" on the drive after the aborted copy, and every
> block on the disk comes up bad. [...]

Given the evidence, it sounds like the drive goes haywire when Copy II+
attempts to write to it, but is fine otherwise.  Have you tried copying
files to the drive using another program, e.g. System Utilities?  How
were the existing files copied onto the drive?

Copy II+ bypasses the normal ProDOS file system calls and uses the
driver directly.  There might be something unusual about the environment
when it is doing this (which differs slightly from how ProDOS sets
things up) which is triggering a problem with the Vulcan.

For example, CII+ might be calling the driver while another slot "owns"
the $C800 space, and the Vulcan's driver might not be using the $CFFF
protocol correctly.  (I'd expect a crash in this particular example.)

Another possibility: which ProDOS version are you using?  If it is
ProDOS-8 2.0 or later, ProDOS might be using the SmartPort driver on the
card rather than the ProDOS driver, and the latter might be buggy.

If the problem appears to be triggered by _any_ write to the drive, and
the drive worked fine in another machine, I'd be inclined to think there
is a fault with the controller, or its firmware.

There isn't any kind of software write protection mechanism, perhaps?

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand