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Getting those darned 5 1/4" working!

E

EverythingIBM

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Okay, I pulled two FDDs from a 5160. I popped one of them in my intellistation, the drive seems to turn on fine and all, but windows XP (if it's even possible to use these drives in it), still complains.
attachment.php


In the BIOS I set the floppy drive to 360K (5 1/4"), the other option was 1.2 MB.. the rest were all 3 1/2".

attachment.php


Issues that I'm worried about:
A) if the jumpers are set correctly (although there's not many on it)
B) if I connected the ribbon the right way, the floppy slot on the mobo didn't have notches, so, I just put it the way I thought it might go in.
C) the difference between the two 5160 FDDs, one is toshiba and the other one is a different brand. The one that was put in isn't the toshiba one (simply because the toshiba drive had the power connector in a really difficult spot when you're working in a cramped tower).

So, what am I doing wrong? :p
 

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modem7 said:
An earlier thread on the subject: http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?7292

And so MattCarp and I saw the same error message, but JDT didn't.
For me, I could boot from a 360K floppy, then run programs from that floppy, but trying to read that same floppy from XP resulted in the error message.
Click to expand...

I never tried booting anything with it, but, as far as I know... it seems to be working; I doubt it would power on, or get that annoying windows XP error. During POSTing, the drive is read. But I don't have any bootable MS-DOS disks... which is why I kind of want to get this drive working... that, and back up some disks I already have.

So, would I be able to create an ubuntu (version 10) CD, and then boot into that, and use the 5 1/4" drive from there?
I have plenty of older computers, but I'd rather just do it in my modern tower; especially since this computer has a nice BIOS to work with (some try to automatically configure the drives such as SurePath, and it just screws everything over).
 
Try using WinImage with the drive. It supports 180/360K floppies, and IIRC I've used it under WinXP SP2 before.
 
EverythingIBM said:
Okay, I pulled two FDDs from a 5160. I popped one of them in my intellistation, the drive seems to turn on fine and all, but windows XP (if it's even possible to use these drives in it), still complains.
attachment.php


In the BIOS I set the floppy drive to 360K (5 1/4"), the other option was 1.2 MB.. the rest were all 3 1/2".

attachment.php



Issues that I'm worried about:
A) if the jumpers are set correctly (although there's not many on it)
B) if I connected the ribbon the right way, the floppy slot on the mobo didn't have notches, so, I just put it the way I thought it might go in.
C) the difference between the two 5160 FDDs, one is toshiba and the other one is a different brand. The one that was put in isn't the toshiba one (simply because the toshiba drive had the power connector in a really difficult spot when you're working in a cramped tower).

So, what am I doing wrong? :p
Click to expand...

It should work. Check this out: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309623
 
glitch said:
Try using WinImage with the drive. It supports 180/360K floppies, and IIRC I've used it under WinXP SP2 before.
Click to expand...

I'm using SP3.
So I tried giving winimage a try, it keeps giving me errors though.

Whenever I try to format the disk, it says:
Disk error on track 0, head 0
Illegal disk change
The media in the drive may have changed.
[abort] [retry] [ignore]

Whenever I try to read a disk, it says there is none...

So did I hook up the drive wrong or something? The drive does power on and make an audible clack whenever something attempts to access the disk. During POSTing, it does do the ol' grumble.

Agent Orange said:
It should work. Check this out: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309623
Click to expand...

I quote: "Windows XP supports formatting only the 1.44MB disk format. Three-mode floppy drives (drives that are capable of reading/writing with 720KB, 1.2MB and 1.44MB 3.5" disks) requires special driver support, and support for this feature is not included in Windows XP."

Windows XP is uncapable of doing what I want to be done.
 
Did you put the Drive Select jumper on DS1 (if the numbers start a 0 ) or DS2 (if they start at 1) when you added it to the modern computer (assuming you are using a FD cable with a twist in it)?
 
Does the drive work if you boot into DOS? A better question would be "Why are you trying to use a 5 1/4" floppy drive from Windows XP?"

Also, you show the drive with the light on - does the light stay on all the time, even when you're not trying to access it? If so, you plugged the cable in backwards.

-Ian
 
Druid6900 said:
Did you put the Drive Select jumper on DS1 (if the numbers start a 0 ) or DS2 (if they start at 1) when you added it to the modern computer (assuming you are using a FD cable with a twist in it)?
Click to expand...

Yep the drive starts at DS0 ends at DS3, and is set to DS1. I am using a newer cable with a twist in it.

RetroHacker_ said:
Does the drive work if you boot into DOS? A better question would be "Why are you trying to use a 5 1/4" floppy drive from Windows XP?"

Also, you show the drive with the light on - does the light stay on all the time, even when you're not trying to access it? If so, you plugged the cable in backwards.

-Ian
Click to expand...

The cable is plugged in the right way, the light doesn't stay permanently on. I thought it looked cool though, love that bright red LED against the black case.
 
EverythingIBM said:
I quote: "Windows XP supports formatting only the 1.44MB disk format.

Windows XP is uncapable of doing what I want to be done.
Click to expand...
Why not read/quote the relevant part:

Windows XP supports the following floppy disk formats:
1.44 megabyte (MB) 3.5" floppy disk (read, write, format)
720 kilobyte (KB) 3.5" floppy disk (read, write only)
1.2MB 5.25" floppy disk (read, write, format)
360KB 5.25" floppy disk (read, write, format)

Note You can format these disks only by using a command at a command prompt.
Click to expand...
So yes, if you insist on formatting your disks within XP instead of using XP's command prompt as they suggest, then yes, XP is "uncapable of doing what you want to be done";

I think you're confusing diskettes with diskette drives... XP can handle all four DD & HD disk formats but it will not work with all types of drives!

But in any case, can't you just boot DOS on the 3.5" drive?
 
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MikeS said:
Why not read/quote the relevant part:

So yes, if you insist on formatting your disks within XP instead of using XP's command prompt as they suggest, then yes, XP is "uncapable of doing what you want to be done";

I think you're confusing diskettes with diskette drives... XP can handle all four DD & HD disk formats but it will not work with all types of drives!

But in any case, can't you just boot DOS on the 3.5" drive?
Click to expand...

I don't presently have a 3.5" drive installed: nor do I want one (if I did install one, it would have to be the model IBM secured for these models: so it could match, with the little lavender button).
I'm saving that bay for a 3.5" fan panel (the other bay 3.5" is occupied by a HDD: my two 5.25" bays are occupied, and the interal 5.25" bay has a SCSI drive installed.

I suppose I could get a USB 3.5 FDD...
 
Ah, sorry; at a fast look I thought the Intellistation used the same case as a bunch of NetVistas that I recently scrapped, but on second look they're completely different; the NetVistas have the lavender button but it's part of the case front. Oddly enough I've got some eServers that use the type of bay like yours, but the floppy drives have ordinary black buttons while the tape drives have the lavender ones ;-)
And of course the desktop models have a bezel with a lavender button but it's a non-standard size; ya gotta love the variety of IBM's models and configurations; never enough bays though IMO...

Anyway, hope you get the floppy issue resolved. I think you'll probably have to settle for a high-density drive; as long as you always write to a given disk with the same drive there shouldn't be any problems using DD disks.
 
MikeS said:
Ah, sorry; at a fast look I thought the Intellistation used the same case as a bunch of NetVistas that I recently scrapped, but on second look they're completely different; the NetVistas have the lavender button but it's part of the case front. Oddly enough I've got some eServers that use the type of bay like yours, but the floppy drives have ordinary black buttons while the tape drives have the lavender ones ;-)
And of course the desktop models have a bezel with a lavender button but it's a non-standard size; ya gotta love the variety of IBM's models and configurations; never enough bays though IMO...

Anyway, hope you get the floppy issue resolved. I think you'll probably have to settle for a high-density drive; as long as you always write to a given disk with the same drive there shouldn't be any problems using DD disks.
Click to expand...

NetVistas (the most common ones) are desktop form factor. I rarely use my desktops on their sides.

Here's an old shot of what the insides years ago [before] I put the 5 1/4" FDD in:
attachment.php

The SCSI inside the internal bay is in fact eServer branded.

The newer intellistations had more bays, for a total of six (seeing as you brought it up):
attachment.php


IBM has a lot of variances between their models for some reason... even though they can seem externally similar. Since I have so many dang IBMs, I generally know the differences of all of them. I could write a book about all of the differences, but that'll go off topic.

Regarding the FDD... when I put an MS-DOS upgrade 5.0 diskette in it, the computer did spin it up and then say "non system disk" or whatever (which should be correct since it's an upgrade diskette)... when I put a blank diskette in, it just ignored it and booted into the HDD... SO... I think that's an indication that the drive is hooked up properly; unless I'm mistaken.

I'll do what Matthew did and try Ubuntu; hopefully version 10 has the same compatibility as version 7.
 

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EverythingIBM said:
NetVistas (the most common ones) are desktop form factor. I rarely use my desktops on their sides.
Click to expand...
As a matter of fact, of the dozen or so NetVistas that I've still got I think 7 are three different tower models similar to your Intellistation and the rest are 2 different desktop models; I think most of their many different models came in both configurations.

IBM has a lot of variances between their models for some reason... even though they can seem externally similar. Since I have so many dang IBMs, I generally know the differences of all of them. I could write a book about all of the differences, but that'll go off topic.
Click to expand...
Tell me about it! Fortunately many of the differences among lines, models and submodels are fairly well documented.

Regarding the FDD... when I put an MS-DOS upgrade 5.0 diskette in it, the computer did spin it up and then say "non system disk" or whatever (which should be correct since it's an upgrade diskette)... when I put a blank diskette in, it just ignored it and booted into the HDD... SO... I think that's an indication that the drive is hooked up properly; unless I'm mistaken.
Click to expand...
Yeah, you might actually be able to boot from it since the BIOS knows about it, but I suspect Windows will not be happy; hard to find a black one but if you've got a 1.2M HD drive around I'd try that just to see what's what.

By the way, I noticed that what I thought was just another NetVista tower is actually a Thinkcenter, and it does have a 3.5" floppy with the lavender button in a bay like yours; it's not one piece though, but a separate bezel that's inserted in the front panel with the usual drive-without-a front behind it.
 
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