tools for formatting floppy disks for the ibm 5160

6.22).Įarly versions of DOS don't cope with certain areas of the hard drive being unusable. 3.3), and you see 'Disk Boot failure' after using FDISK/FORMAT, then try a later version of DOS (e.g.

If you are using an early version of DOS (e.g. There are three possible low-level format techniques available for the IBM Fixed Disk Adapter (all three variations):Īlthough the DEBUG technique shown is probably convenient for most people, it is known to be problematic if your hard drive has a significant number of bad tracks.Īfter the low-level format, to get the hard drive booting to DOS, you will need to perform the standard FDISK/FORMAT operations. If you are in any doubt about that, then before proceeding to perform a low-level format, refer to the information on the link here. Floppy disks store digital data which can be read and written when the disk is inserted into a floppy disk drive (FDD) connected to or inside a computer or other device. Incorrect drive termination can also have an affect. This is something that you will almost certainly need to do if the drive has come from a different model of controller.Ī low-level format is not going to work if your drive and IBM Fixed Disk Adapter are not correctly cabled, or if the drive does not have its drive-select jumpers set properly. This web page covers the low-level format of a drive connected to that controller. I sometimes refer to these as the 'IBM/Xebec HDD controller'.

The ' IBM Fixed Disk Adapter' is the hard drive controller that Xebec made for IBM's use in the IBM 5160 (IBM XT). Low-level formatting a hard drive will destroy any existing data on that drive.

IBM Fixed Disk Adapter - Low-Level Format

Tools for formatting floppy disks for the ibm 5160