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My first 5 1/4 floppy drive and its issues

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[UFO]

Experienced Member
Joined
Feb 6, 2012
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56
Location
Spain
Hi people!

I have just received my first 5 1/4 floppy drive, a Panasonic JU-475-5. It came along with a bunch of disks, including a pair of Windows 3.0, so cool :)

I connect it as drive B: to my Pentium I Intel AN30TX motherboard and does not detect it. I configure it as a 5 1/4 1.2MB HD in the BIOS and nothing, it is not detected at boot. The drive boots and make the "ready" noise when I turn on the computer and disks spin without getting stuck or so.

I have searched for the drive manual or specs because it has a bunch of jumpers to configure and do not know what to do with them.

Any recommendation about what to check, please?


Thank you in advance :)
 
First off, believe it or not, there's more than one type of JU-475-5. However, this document should help a bit regarding jumpers.

Make certain that your cabling is correct (i.e. the drive cable isn't on "upside down") and you should be fine.
 
Stone said:
The only thing worth checking is the DriveSelect jumper. It should be on position #2.
Click to expand...

I'm glad you're confident that you know where the drive's been, Stone! Pity the poor fool that gets one of mine--jumpered for dual-speed, or 720K operation, for example.
 
FWIW, you type much faster than I do. My post was a response to [UFO]'s post and not yours. I hadn't even seen your post when I typed that. :smile:​
 
Okay, unit checked as "DS2" and dual mode (I guess this is to take both 320K and 1.2M disks, right?) and nothing. I will check some more...
 
DS2 is not necessarily correct. The second position is, though. If your settings start with DS0, then DS1 would be the correct setting.
 
Does the drive light up the same time as your A drive?
Does the drive light stay on?
Does the BIOS report an error or go straight through?
Is there a twist in the cable before your A drive but after B drive?
 
SpidersWeb said:
Does the drive light up the same time as your A drive?
Click to expand...
Yes, it does. Also, make the "ready" noise at the same time.

SpidersWeb said:
Does the drive light stay on?
Click to expand...
No, it lights up a second and that's all.

SpidersWeb said:
Does the BIOS report an error or go straight through?
Click to expand...

Yes, it does. It reports "Error in floppy drive B:" and gives me the option of enter the BIOS or carry on to Windows 95.

SpidersWeb said:
Is there a twist in the cable before your A drive but after B drive?
Click to expand...

Yes, there is. 3,5 drive is at the "unit 1" position and this is at the "unit 2" position.

Chuck(G) said:
...and while we're at it, which version of the JU-475-5 do you have?
Click to expand...

That's the point. According to the document you gave me, I should have a C08 / C20, because the drive board is the same as the one that appears in the image.
 
OK, fixed! How? Don't ask. Just moved it from the bottom 5.25 slot to the middle one. Maybe at the bottom touched the case and made "ground" contact, I don't know.

The point is that now I can enjoy this cool and old 5.25 software! Yay!

Thanks for your replies :)
 
[UFO] said:
OK, fixed! How? Don't ask. Just moved it from the bottom 5.25 slot to the middle one. Maybe at the bottom touched the case and made "ground" contact, I don't know.
Click to expand...

It was the computer gnomes, you may have upset them some. :D
 
sometimes if you put a 5.25" on the bottom most slot, in some cases, the drive spindle will actually contact the bottom of the drive cage, preventing the drive from turning at all, hence the error, moving up would leave nothing on the bottom, hence i never put a 5.25 in the bottom 5.25 inch slot, unless the drive spindle is recessed a little, alot of my belt driven drives are like that.
 
Pepinno said:
It was the computer gnomes, you may have upset them some. :D
Click to expand...

We all know those gnomes are tricky folk! Hurry quick, you must make a sacrifice to teh computer gods. You must also sacrifice your first made pcb board after birth! *runs and covers for fear of Zeus, the computer God
 
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