Floppy drives and cables

[Maxxarcade]

I still have my original Teac floppy drive from back when I built my 286 computer... I still use it to make the occasional floppy for older machines, diagnostics, BIOS updates etc.

Problem is, my new motherboard has the floppy connector at the bottom, and I have a full tower case that has the floppy at the very top.

I figured I have two options. Either make my own extra long cable (I have the stuff to do it at work), or I can upgrade to a multi-card reader/floppy drive that uses USB, since I also have an unused internal USB header. Though don't most combo drives still use floppy cables along with USB?

Anyone know what the maximum cable length for a floppy is? I probably need a 26" cable at minimum, to get around the cards and the bigass Zippy power supply

If I remember right, I paid over $50 for the floppy drive in the early 90's

[pentium]

Re: Floppy drives and cables

They can get pretty damn long in cases.
I got an extra floppy cable with one of my systems and you could simply plug it into the end of your old drive.
You could also try splicing in a new section of cable too.
Does that board have 5 1/4" support or did that end with the new socket A boards?

[Maxxarcade]

Re: Floppy drives and cables

It does seem to support 5 1/4" drives, I can select 360K or 1.2M in the BIOS. I know WinXP doesn't like anything other than a 1.44MB 3 1/2" though.

[kc8adu]

Re: Floppy drives and cables

i remember floppy cables 3' long for those full tower cases with the fdd at the very top.

[Rainbow]

Re: Floppy drives and cables

I made long IDE and floppy cables for testing purposes. The floppy cable works fine. The IDE cable works fine on most boards but doesn't on some. It's a good quality indicator - if it does not work, the board is probably crap.

[willawake]

Re: Floppy drives and cables

Though don't most combo drives still use floppy cables along with USB?

yes

[Tom41]

Re: Floppy drives and cables

i remember floppy cables 3' long for those full tower cases with the fdd at the very top.

Do you mean like this tower I have? (left of picture)
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...achmentid=2724

AFAIK, the floppy cable in that machine is no longer than in other PCs I've seen, ones that have the floppy drive in the middle (often next to the power button).

Oddly, both my P3 and Athlon 2GHz machine have the floppy drive in the centre of the tower, but the Athlon 1GHz machine (used to be running WinME, now running XP) has the floppy at the top!

[WNG]

Re: Floppy drives and cables

That looks like an In-Win full tower. I had a similar one but sold it recently along with the extra long cables it came with.
I think mine was 29" long. Had I kept it, I would've been happy to give it to you.

[Maxxarcade]

Re: Floppy drives and cables

My case is actually an Inwin Q2000AX. I've been trying to find another one because I like the layout, but they seem to be discontinued. I think it was one of the last cases I bought that actually had some weight to it. I think it was approaching Lian-Li price range though...

EDIT: The bottom pic was taken before I upgraded my motherboard... The new one has a 24 pin plug right on it, so that cheesy adapter isn't there anymore.

The Zippy PSL-6700P power supply was a bit tight, even in this big case. BTW I bought that power supply after seeing a post about the internals of it here

[pentium]

Re: Floppy drives and cables

Damn son, you have a lot of space above your PSU.