As I mentioned in an earlier entry, the Epson TF-20 5.25 inch floppy drive requires its OS to be loaded from disk before the unit will communicate and work with the PX-8.

My over riding intention since acquiring the TF-20 has been to back up the single boot disk that came with the system given that it’s over 20 years old and should the disk have failed the drive would have been rendered useless.

My initial attempts failed, although I have a copy of Copydisk and it was apparently successfully formatting and creating disks with the system tracks, when I tried to boot the drive with those disks, no luck.

I spoke to F J Kraan who advised that the proper disk type was Double Density (DD) as opposed to the High Density (HD) that I was using.  I tracked down some DD disks and repeated the process and it works.  I have of course therefore made several back up boot disks and feel somewhat relieved.

Incidentally the HD disks give the impression of working for general file usage, but success is intermittent, with occasional bad sector errors.  Meanwhile the working PF-10 has decided to well, stop working, hopefully this last burst of activity wasn’t its last hurrah.

I’m waiting on some C size batteries to try in the drive to see if it’s a battery issue or not.  Meanwhile I took one of the PF-10’s apart and took some crumb trail pictures with my phone.

(Update:- I’ve installed the four new C size batteries in the PF-10, but still no joy, harumph!)

Well it seems Epson PF-10 floppy disk drives are somewhat like buses, you don’t see any for ages and then two come along at once.  Much to my surprise given what I’d read and been told about the rarity of the PF-10, another one appeared on Ebay.

This one was listed along with a PX-8 which I didn’t really need however I decided it was worth bidding just to acquire the drive.  I duly won the auction, the PF-10 arrived and… it works!

It’s a bit temperamental but I like a challenge.  It’s in very good condition, especially compared to the rather beaten up drive I previously bought and it is sitting right next to me now, looking all Silent Running like, and somewhat dwarfed by the TF-20.

Thus far I’ve managed to read, write and format some disks with it, the battery is a bit flaky and the drive unfortunately won’t run of off the power adapter, although it will take 4 C type standard batteries if required.  I’m going to swap out the battery for the one in my other drive which seems more successful at holding a charge.  I’m also going to set the required dip switch so I can daisy chain it with the TF-20.

As a bonus (I hadn’t noticed it in the picture) the accompanying PX-8 was fitted with an external RAM disk which I had been on the look out for anyway.  Unfortunately it’s currently giving me BDOS errors whenever I try to access it.  I’m hopeful however that this is an issue with its batteries as opposed to any other damage.  I took it apart to confirm that battery type which turned out to be an Epson RB 101, 4.8V 500 mAh.

I’ve taken some pictures, unfortunately they are with my phone so I apologise for the quality, I’ll hopefully be able to take some proper photos soon, note the cheesy 70’s wood panelling, very apt.