5.25 floppy

[ozzy214]

I am going through all my computers here. I cant not find any that will run 5.25 floppy drive. I have as old as socket 775 p4 sli board and a asus p5q se plus..my current rig. None of them have 5.25 floppy support in the bios.

Anybody have any ideas? I was looking on ebay and can only find 3.25 usb floppies, no 5.25 floppies.

I even tried a am2 board in a factory HP and same thing,

See, I have a bunch of floppies that I want to test for resale. As well as drives.

Anyone have any ideas?

I used to run a lot of e scrap and sell to the gold buyers. But sources dried up, so doubt I will see any p3's with support anytime soon.

[jiroy]

Re: 5.25 floppy

I am going through all my computers here. I cant not find any that will run 5.25 floppy drive. I have as old as socket 775 p4 sli board and a asus p5q se plus..my current rig. None of them have 5.25 floppy support in the bios.

Anybody have any ideas? I was looking on ebay and can only find 3.25 usb floppies, no 5.25 floppies.

I even tried a am2 board in a factory HP and same thing,

See, I have a bunch of floppies that I want to test for resale. As well as drives.

Anyone have any ideas?

I used to run a lot of e scrap and sell to the gold buyers. But sources dried up, so doubt I will see any p3's with support anytime soon.

Did you Try to enable , in the bios , the option of Floppy B , usually it is disabled and it is the one who support 5.25inch in older machines , as well as the option of swapping Floppy drives option = Yes ?

[stj]

Re: 5.25 floppy

linux can ignore the bios and read any hardware you specify.

[eccerr0r]

Re: 5.25 floppy

It's still a problem if the board doesn't have a 34 pin connector...

Dang, I still have (a lot of) boards with floppy support, talk about obsolete hardware :-(

[dmill89]

Re: 5.25 floppy

I am going through all my computers here. I cant not find any that will run 5.25 floppy drive. I have as old as socket 775 p4 sli board and a asus p5q se plus..my current rig. None of them have 5.25 floppy support in the bios.

Anybody have any ideas? I was looking on ebay and can only find 3.25 usb floppies, no 5.25 floppies.

I even tried a am2 board in a factory HP and same thing,

See, I have a bunch of floppies that I want to test for resale. As well as drives.

Anyone have any ideas?

I used to run a lot of e scrap and sell to the gold buyers. But sources dried up, so doubt I will see any p3's with support anytime soon.

I've got a socket 754 board (an ECS 755-A2 with a sis 755/964 chipset) that supports dual-floppy and 5.25", probably the newest I've seen that actually supports dual-floppies (both 3.5" and 5.25" at the same time), some newer boards may still support a 5.25" as a single drive though. Socket 370 boards and older are probably most likely to support dual-floppy and 5.25" but there are some newer boards that do as well.

It's still a problem if the board doesn't have a 34 pin connector...

Dang, I still have (a lot of) boards with floppy support, talk about obsolete hardware :-(

Floppy connectors aren't "that obsolete", there are a few (very few) new boards that still have them, and they were very common up through the Core 2 Dou/Quad socket 775 era (even if the system didn't have a FDD the board usually still had a connector for it), my Gigabyte EP45C-UD3R (Intel P45 chipset socket 775) board is the newest one I have with a FDD connector.

[ozzy214]

Re: 5.25 floppy

I solved the issue. Found a old custom built...appears to be unsure.....socket 7 board in a tower complete with everything including isa scuzzi card.

Gonna try and install xp on it or run xubuntu live off a usb stick. Use PLOP obviously so it can boot USB LOL!

Yes it is correct, some newer boards do have floppy connector. But 5.25 support is not there. Only 3.25 and 3.50 support. My Asus p5q se plus I been running since 2008 and have updated with newer tech voer the years does have a FDD connector. But no 5.25 support.

I just got lucky I buy scrap off of my competitor that stole most of my scrap business with higher pricing. And there was a perfect machine to play with!!

See, people do still use 5.25 floppies. Enthusiasts, collectors, etc. Hell Commodores use them. Hence why I need something to test floppies and drives for resale.

Apperantly no longer they make 5.25 disks, but people still buying. Hell I just sold NOS IBM 3.25 floppies for 35 shipped just two days ago. LOL!

[stj]

Re: 5.25 floppy

the bios cant tell what type of drive you have, the setting is just for booting and "advising" the o.s. what drive it may be.

if you have an award bios, you can re-enable all the older options wih a bios editor.

[ozzy214]

Re: 5.25 floppy

OK then maybe the floppy drive i been playing with is no good. I tried 3.25 and 3.50 setting. Windows 7 comes up and loads the floppy drives. But all drives does is spin, doesnt try to read. MMM

[stj]

Re: 5.25 floppy

does the head(s) move to seek the tracks?

maybe you need to change the jumpers - modern pc's are not 100% SHUGART compatable.
that's why you cant use un-modified pc drives in an ST or Amiga.

[ozzy214]

Re: 5.25 floppy

Nope head doesnt move. I dont see any jumpers on it to be honest.

[stj]

Re: 5.25 floppy

make & model?

[ozzy214]

Re: 5.25 floppy

Mitsu mf501c-318u

[stj]

Re: 5.25 floppy

well it's a lot newer than i expected.
it should just work - once the o.s. has been told what it is.
(1.2meg high density double-sided)

[ozzy214]

Re: 5.25 floppy

It doesnt. OS install 3.25 drivers and thats it.

[ozzy214]

Re: 5.25 floppy

well it's a lot newer than i expected.
it should just work - once the o.s. has been told what it is.
(1.2meg high density double-sided)

How do you tell windows 7 its 5.25 floppy 1.2meg?

I grabbed another drive off the shelf and this one actually seems to work. But cant read any disks i feed it

[jiroy]

Re: 5.25 floppy

How do you tell windows 7 its 5.25 floppy 1.2meg?

I grabbed another drive off the shelf and this one actually seems to work. But cant read any disks i feed it

It's time then to do some cleaning . If you can disassemble the unit properly , you can clean the lenses . You'll find of course lot of dirt and dust to remove

The cable connector of floppies , or the older ones at least connect all kinds of inches , if it recognize one kind , then it will recognize the second forcely , provided the related options in Bios are not disabled . If , there are no options of enabling or disabling , then , by default , the windows is forced to recognize em ..

[stj]

Re: 5.25 floppy

i dont use windows.
maybe your disks you cant read are not high density.

[ozzy214]

Re: 5.25 floppy

Well I learned something interesting. I have the bios set to 3.5 and 1.44mb floppy. On the boot menu it tries to boot the floppy. So obviously bios sees it, but cant boot due to nothing on disk.

I just installed dual boot xp/windows 7 on one box and both os say their is no disk present.

So Im lost. How could the bios see and try to boot the disc? But both os cant see disk?

[jiroy]

Re: 5.25 floppy

Well I learned something interesting. I have the bios set to 3.5 and 1.44mb floppy. On the boot menu it tries to boot the floppy. So obviously bios sees it, but cant boot due to nothing on disk.

I just installed dual boot xp/windows 7 on one box and both os say their is no disk present.

So Im lost. How could the bios see and try to boot the disc? But both os cant see disk?

It's very simple .. the bios detects the device and windows 7 cannot locate its proper drivers , or let's say appropriate ones . Notice here that systems with 64 bit are harder to identify old devices than the 32bit ones . Some devices are 100% compatible , meaning , it is plug and play , an others need a certain driver from manufacturers ..

Try to locate the 5.25 inch in control panel , does it show there ?

[ozzy214]

Re: 5.25 floppy

Windows 7 sees it as 3.5. I think its a bios limitation, because I installed xp and it cant pull data or format. I then tried zubuntu live and it said somethign about cant mount and bad blocks. So guess this box cant read it

So going to have to fire up the dinosaur and try that!