Re: Can modern PCs run 5-1/4" floppy drives?

AZ Nomad wrote:

On Fri, 05 Oct 2007 13:28:49 GMT, Joerg <notthisjoergsch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



AZ Nomad wrote:


On Fri, 05 Oct 2007 02:50:23 GMT, Joerg <notthisjoergsch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:




AZ Nomad wrote:


End in India, usually, and then they say what's in the manual for BIOS settings (which say "nope").

Not dell. They'll tell you to 're-initialize' (reformat and blow everything away).





At the hardware level, there is no difference between 3.5" floppies and 5.25"
floppies. You can format one as the other. You can read either format no
matter what the BIOS thinks. The only thing you need to do at the BIOS level
is enable the controller. For formating floppies, you have to format the
correct # of sectors/track. XP still has the capability; I don't know about
that POS vista.




Ah, so I could possibly rig up a bunch of relays or bus switches and have a HW toggle up front? The BIOS will only recognize one floppy drive. So XP won't even get to see them I guess.


You silly goose. All you need is the right cable. The standard floppy
interface can handle two drives, either 3.5" or 5.25".

The BIOS is just there to initialize the controller and load the OS. Once the
OS is running, it is out of the picture. Any OS more modern than about DOS 2.x
will re-initialize the floppy controller, scan for available drives, etc.

Just get the cable and try it. You've nothing to lose.



Ok then, I'll just give it a shot. Have to splice in the power somehow because new PCs have SATA power jacks instead of Molex. Normally I'd just snip, strip, solder and shrink tube but in this case the warranty would be toast if I did. Off-the-shelf adapters usually work the other way around. Oh well.


Interesting. It's taking forever for optical drives to go SATA, and power
supplies have also been very slow to make the move. I just built a file server
with 8 SATA drives and had to buy a few molex->Y->:SATA power adapters as the
power supply, as is typical, only had 4 SATA connectors.

Maybe solder to the power supply connector of the existing 3.5" floppy drive to
avoid cutting into your PS wiring?


Yep, that's what I am going to do. Don't see any other way.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
.

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