23 Oct
2007
23 Oct
'07
10:03 a.m.
Message: 24
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 09:59:13 -0700
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
Subject: Re: 5-1/4 diskette drive on current computers
<snip>
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.
<snip>
Cheers,
Chuck
-----------
Nevertheless, in light of the amount of misinformation about the
subject (apparently even on the MS site) it might be worth mentioning
again that at least XP does not have any problems with any of the standard
floppy formats (although all except 3.5HD require formatting from a CLI),
and that the restrictions, if any, are in the modern BIOSs and mobo
hardware no matter how modern (or not) the OS may be.
mike
23 Oct
23 Oct
5:50 p.m.
On 23 Oct 2007 at 14:03, M H Stein wrote:
Nevertheless, in light of the amount of misinformation
about the
subject (apparently even on the MS site) it might be worth mentioning
again that at least XP does not have any problems with any of the standard
floppy formats (although all except 3.5HD require formatting from a CLI),
and that the restrictions, if any, are in the modern BIOSs and mobo
hardware no matter how modern (or not) the OS may be.
Anent XP and 2K, one thing that's absolutely required to get anywhere
is a Windows-conforming boot sector on a disk to be read, complete
with media descriptor. The NT/XP/2K/Vista floppy driver reads that
sector on any newly-inserted floppy then matches it against a table
of media descriptors it knows about. No match means you get a
"General Failure" or some such error, no matter how readable the
diskette might be in non Windows terms. This should (but I haven't
checked) eliminate PC-DOS 1.1 diskettes.
Interestingly, it's possible to *write* a non-Windows conforming boot
sector on 2K/XP. When the diskette just written is reinserted,
however, you won't be able to read it.
This situation obtains even if you use 16-bit VMM access using port
I/O or BIOS calls.
Cheers,
Chuck
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