CompuServe Thread

#Optical incompatability

4 messages in this thread
#85617From: Richard EdmistonNov 10, 1993 9:36 PM
I have used a Ricoh 3020f 128mb optical drive through my parallel port using Trantor's MiniSCSI Plus and their TSCSI.SYS v4.53 (latest) on my TI Notebook (Dos v.4.01). I used their TFORMAT to format my disk and it has worked well. I recently bought an EISA machine (Dos 6.0) and have installed a Fujitsu M2511A optical drive using Corel SCSI v1.2b (latest?) formating the optical disk with TFORMAT. I have no problems reading the Ricoh-Trantor formated disks on the Fujitsu-Corel system but the Ricoh-Trantor system wont even recognize the Fujitsu-Corel formated disk placed in the drive? I believe both are formated differently but I dont have the tools to tell. I would prefer to have both type formated disks interchangable if possible for obvious reasons. Do I need to change the Dos drivers? I tried both low and high level formating using TFORMAT without success. Both type formated disks read as sector size 512 and cluster size 2048 when using Coreltools. Any help would be appreciated. Also is there a way to format an optical disk using Coreltools in Windows? There doesn't seem to be that capability yet? Thanks
#85630From: Kevin LyonsNov 10, 1993 10:56 PM
Richard, I have just bought the "DynaMO" Fugitsu M2511A drive bundled with a Adaptec SCSI card. I am having similar problems. I gave a local Imaging Center me optical 128MB ISO factory formatted "standard" disk to have film outputs, sounds easy enough (ha ha). They have a Panasonic-Adaptec drive and it would not even recognize. Please pass on any Information you may find… Your not alone.. Searching. . . . . Kevin
#85719From: Bryan ShearerNov 11, 1993 10:50 AM
Richard, Some very good questions. Currently Corel has the capability to read and write to existing ADAPTEC bios, ASPIDISK, SyQUEST, BERNOULLI, COREL, and other DOS formats. Unfortunately the other drivers are not so robust. If the Trantor // to SCSI converter has an ASPI manager, I would try our drivers on it. If it works, then you can get a licensed copy for that computer as well. CorelSCSI version 2.0 would be the upgrade that you would want. I has taken all the DOS utilities and migrated them all to Windows. It also has CD ROM writer, SCANNER, and Printer support. This means that you could run drive diagnostics and format utilities directly from Windows! I have posted a general message regarding upgrade pricing here in the forum. I hope this helps. Laszlo
#85873From: Richard EdmistonNov 11, 1993 10:42 PM
Thanks for the info Lazlo. I talked to Richard (last name unknown) at your Corel Tech support and he reiterated what you have responded. Give him a raise..how refreshing to reach someone that knowledgeable and pleasant who can solve your problem in a few minutes…I'll wait for your upgrade in a couple of weeks.. For your info, I encountered one other small problem when installing PC TOOLS from Central Point in Windows. Seems that I had a Trantor formated (DOS Hard disk sectors) disk in the Fujitsu (CorelSCSI) supported optical drive when I ran the install program and the program manufactured (designated) two drives for the single optical drive, both accessing the same disk, both single volumes. I presume the reason is the different formating styles of the two systems? I put a Corel formated disk back in the drive and reinstalled PC TOOLS and came up correctly with a single drive designation??? Seems to work fine now. Thanks