21 Oct
2007
21 Oct
'07
11:28 a.m.
I remember a discussion a long time ago but not much of it.
Would there be anyway to hook up a 5-1/4" diskette drive to a modern
day computer running any version of Windows?
Have a number of things that I would love to convert to 3-1/2" or put on CD.
The two machines that I have up and running are Windows 98 and Vista
Ultimate. I also have an older Thinkpad 500 running Windows 3.1
21 Oct
21 Oct
1:40 p.m.
Gene Ehrich wrote:
Would there be anyway to hook up a 5-1/4"
diskette drive to a modern day
computer running any version of Windows?
I don't know about Vista, but 98 knows what to do with a 5.25" drive.
Check and see if the bios has a 5.25" setting..... if it does, plug it
in and go. I used to have a 360K Teac running on a Win98 machine. I
didn't do anything special to make it work.
Chad Fernandez
Michigan, USA
22 Oct
22 Oct
3:14 p.m.
Gene Ehrich wrote:
I remember a discussion a long time ago but not much
of it.
Would there be anyway to hook up a 5-1/4" diskette drive to a modern
day computer running any version of Windows?
Have a number of things that I would love to convert to 3-1/2" or put
on CD.
The two machines that I have up and running are Windows 98 and Vista
Ultimate. I also have an older Thinkpad 500 running Windows 3.1
Jerome Fine replies:
I still have both a 5 1/4" floppy drive on a Pentium III under
W98SE as well as the 3 1/2" floppy drive.
The only time that I use the 5 1/4" floppy drive is when I run
Ersatz-11. Then the 5 1/4" drive is either an RX50 or an RX33.
The 3 1/2" floppy drive is used to boot DOS when I run GHOST
to perform a backup. When I run Ersatz-11, the 3 1/2" floppy
drive becomes an RX23.
I do intend to upgrade to WXP with a Pentium 4. From what I
read, the above use of both 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" floppy drives
may still be possible. Can anyone confirm?
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
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3:33 p.m.
On 10/22/07, Jerome H. Fine <jhfinedp3k at compsys.to> wrote:
I do intend to upgrade to WXP with a Pentium 4. From what I
read, the above use of both 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" floppy drives
may still be possible. Can anyone confirm?
This suggests that it would be possible:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B309623
4:35 p.m.
On 22 Oct 2007 at 14:33, Jason T wrote:
This suggests that it would be possible:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B309623
Yes, but--this doesn not include 360K 5.25" 48 tpi drives. AFAIK,
there is no support for these in XP. Worse, there may be no way to
tell your BIOS setup that you're using one--on many systems that I've
seen, the menu option is gone. Worse yet, is the trend that's been
several years a-going that only *one* floppy is supported on a
system, regardless of cabling used (i.e., the electrical signals for
the second drive are absent on the drive connector.
Cheers,
Chuck
23 Oct
23 Oct
5 a.m.
On Mon, 22 Oct 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote:
seen, the menu option is gone. Worse yet, is the
trend that's been
several years a-going that only *one* floppy is supported on a
system, regardless of cabling used (i.e., the electrical signals for
the second drive are absent on the drive connector.
Yes, the signals are absent. But if you have a look at the datasheet for
the super I/O chip (e.g. ITE IT8712) you'll see that the chip still can
handle two drives. Just route the signals from the chip to the socket
(e.g. with fine wire-wrap wire) and eventually program the chip to enable
these signals (many pins have shared functions, the actual function is
selected by programming the appropriate I/O configuration register).
As a side note: many older boards that support two drives can handle four
drives with the same procedure. They have /DS0, /DS1, /DS2 and /DS3 as
well as the four /MOTORx lines. You only need a second socket and you
should be able to use the two additional drives with the proper DRIVER.SYS
statement. Again, a look at the datasheet will tell you whether the
limitation comes from the I/O chip or simply (as in most cases) from the
motherboard designer.
Christian
12:59 p.m.
On 23 Oct 2007 at 11:00, Christian Corti wrote:
Yes, the signals are absent. But if you have a look at
the datasheet for
the super I/O chip (e.g. ITE IT8712) you'll see that the chip still can
handle two drives. Just route the signals from the chip to the socket
(e.g. with fine wire-wrap wire) and eventually program the chip to enable
these signals (many pins have shared functions, the actual function is
selected by programming the appropriate I/O configuration register).
As a side note: many older boards that support two drives can handle four
drives with the same procedure. They have /DS0, /DS1, /DS2 and /DS3 as
well as the four /MOTORx lines. You only need a second socket and you
should be able to use the two additional drives with the proper DRIVER.SYS
statement.
If you're using DOS it might be that simple (if modifying a modern
motherboard can be called "simple"), but the BIOS configuration
software for many of these machine allows for only one drive, which
lets out support on OS-es such as Win2K and WinXP.
Given the poor state of expandability of many modern mobos, I don't
consider modification a worthwhile enterprise except as an
interesting exercise.
Anent the configuration situation and a related thread, there are
chipsets that also allow interfacing a floppy via the parallel port
with suitable configuration. But again, your BIOS is going to be a
problem for this if you're using a "modern" Windoze OS.
Given that the floppy controller is about the only thing in a modern
machine that requires a PCI-to-ISA bridge, I expect that it's not far
from vanishing permanently from all new PCs.
Cheers,
Chuck
22 Oct
22 Oct
5:20 p.m.
Jerome H. Fine wrote:
I do intend to upgrade to WXP with a Pentium 4. From
what I
read, the above use of both 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" floppy drives
may still be possible. Can anyone confirm?
I do it all the time.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
27 Oct
27 Oct
4:17 p.m.
have tried it on Windoze up to 2000 Server. You need
to have a 3.5" drive as a:, and the 5.25" (DD or HD)
as b:. Works like a charm. I seem to recall W2000 even
being able to open a quad.
You'll need an old style a:/b: cable wit duh twist to
differentiate the 2. Set up bios accordingly. Never
did it on anything other then a Celeron/PMMX though
IIRC. I don't imagine the hardware (accept for
proprietary) being the issue.
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