INIT problems

Which drive do you have the disk in that you're trying to INIT? Going by what you've typed it should be in drive 2. If the disk is in drive 1 then there is no need to add the comma and D2 to the last line as it will automatically INIT drive 1 after you press return.

Dean

I tried what you said above, and It still doesn't work.

Do you have a Double-sided, double-density diskette loaded in the drive, and is the drive door shut?

I don't know if it's double sided, but I know it's double density, and yes, the drive door is shut. "I/O Error" is what DOS says.

Do you have two drives, or do you have one? Are you putting the disk in drive 1, or drive 2? In your command example you gave at first, D1 will address drive 1, and D2 will address drive 2.

Finally... the disk you're trying to format may in fact be bad. Do you have others to try?

Yes, I have two drives. And the floppies that I am trying to format came from a sealed box of new, unused floppies. I have tried a couple different floppies. I have tried putting the disk in drive one and two, and nether one formats correctly. "I/O ERROR"

Mark Baldridge

Mark,
Did not see you mention anything about cleaning your drive heads. If you haven't already done so clean your drive heads. A simple procedure and a good place to start your troubleshooting.

Guess you could have a bad box of floppies....out of a bulk order of twenty boxes recently, I did have one box where seven out of the ten diskettes were bad. Do you have other diskettes to try and format that did not come from that particular box? Is this an Apple you have had a while and has worked fine up until now or did you just get it?

Jim

Well, I have tried formatting a few different disks, and they all have the same problem. I can read and write from already formated disks, so I doubt that it's the heads. I got this Apple II+ second-hand from my grandma after my grandpa passed away. I'm not sure if my grandpa ever had success formatting disks or not. I will try formatting a disk from a different box. Sorry to keep giving you people negative answers, but I came to this forum because I was stumped. :-)

I have seen this before when the drive got plugged in wrong into the card, next thing I knew it didn't init disks. Try this:

Boot DOS 3.3 disk in Drive 1 after it finishes place it in drive 2.
Type CATALOG,D2 and press RETURN. If this doesn't work, drive 2 is in need of service.

If this works, place a blank disk in drive 2 and type in your program and INIT HELLO (you don't need D2 because you are already set on Drive 2). If this doesn't work, find out what type of disks you have. you need SS, DD disks. That's Single Sided, Double Density disks. The Double Density is a must, they can be Double Sided but the drive is only single sided.

If you still get the I/O error there is a problem with that drive.

Here's a solution using single drive.

Boot DOS 3.3 REMOVE that disk after it finishes.

Place a fresh disk in to drive 1

Type in your program, then type:

INIT HELLO (RETURN key)

This will use the first drive to INIT the disk and should work if your disks are good.

Hope this helps,

Vince

Did you try to read back the files you wrote on previously formatted floppies? The write may have appeared to have been done but perhaps the floppy didn't get updated.

You may want to try another controller card. You can pick one up on ebay pretty cheaply.

Mike

Yes, I'm sure that I can read the data back. I've written several BASIC action games, and saved them on a disk.

I can see the drive two CATALOG, and that all works fine. I can't INITialize the disks though. I Believe that I will have to get new disks, or they might not be DD. Thank you for your help everyone.

~Mark T. Baldridge

If you can get a hold of a copy of copyII+, or some other copy programs you should be able to format disks from that program. It has been a long , long time since I did that old way. I keep thinking that a Charecter $ is needed somewhere in the init.

Take Care

Take one of your working floppies and place another floppy on top of it such that the two write protect notches are lined up. Now flip the upper floppy from left to right such that the write protect notch on the upper floppy is opposite the write protect notch on the lower, working floppy. Use a fine tipped marker to outline the upper notch with the lower floppy. Now cut out the new notch on the good floppy. You now have a double-sided floppy. Put it in the drive upside down and try init-ing it. If it works you have proved the new floppies are bad. If it doesn't work you really haven't proved the system is bad. You could try that with your new floppy too.

Mike

Mike

Ok, do you think there is any possibility of damage to the good floppy?

Okay, My good floppy INITialized fine on the other side, so I am now sure that I have a bad box of floppies. Thank you everyone for your fine support, and encouraging helpfulness. What is the difference between DD and HD?

The real answer is magnetic coercivity - they are different between the two magnetic coatings on DD vs. HD diskette surfaces. They are essentially incompatible with one another. Your disks aren't bad - they just aren't usable by the Apple.

That is certainly the problem all along, and the reason why we started out by asking if you were using DD media...