• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

setting up more then 2 floppy drives.

oblivion

oblivion

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 28, 2010
Messages
1,003
Location
Apache Junction, AZ
i have a late model 486 board with an onboard floppy controller. right now i have 2 1.44mb floppy drives hooked up and i was thinking of adding a 1.2mb drive as well. i know well the limit is 2 floppy drives but is adding a 3rd or forth as easy as popping in a floppy controller card and hooking up anouther drive? i have PCI and ISA slots avalible.
 
Some controller cards were able to be a secondary controller. Check to make sure the card you plan on purchasing can do that. If you have one, then yes it is really as simple as setting jumpers, plopping in card, and attaching cables. Oh, yeah, you might need drivers as well.

Other options include specialty addon cards that support more than 2 floppies. Some built in controllers were unhappy with an addon floppy card. Instead, turn off the built in floppy support and let the addon card handle all three or four drives.

The last option is to find an external drive. Yes, the 5.25" externals are very hard to find these days but if you are lucky it could be cheaper than a second controller.
 
I've got a Promise DC-4030VL IDE/floppy controller that I used to use on my 486 that has two floppy and two HD ports on it, so it supports four of each. But it's a VLB card so I don't think you could use it unless you just failed to tell us something about your system. :smile: This sucker has an 80286-16 on it and takes up to 16 MB of simms.​
 
Stone said:
I've got a Promise DC-4030VL IDE/floppy controller that I used to use on my 486 that has two floppy and two HD ports on it, so it supports four of each. But it's a VLB card so I don't think you could use it unless you just failed to tell us something about your system. :smile: This sucker has an 80286-16 on it and takes up to 16 MB of simms.​
Click to expand...

i have a 1 VLB slot on the MB but i've read that VLB will conflict with a pci card if both slots are used or cause instability.
 
Stone said:
I've got a Promise DC-4030VL​
Click to expand...

Would you know the difference in a 4030 and a DC200? They look similar but have different rows of slot connectors. The chips on the 4030 say 92, and the 200s say 93. The 200 also only has a single floppy connector. I've got several of those cards here but they're all a little different.
 
Just nab a biosless floppy/hd controller (goldstar preferred). Most them have jumpers to set the controller to work as drives 3+4. Downside is you take up an extra slot this way...

zoom_s_p_18468_2.jpg

I own one of these ^ and it does have the jumpers for 3/4

Then you also have the option of a scsi controller, most 1xxx series adaptec handle 4 floppy drives. Usually IDE caching controllers support 4 as well.

As for the promise card, I have its isa brother. Strange the VLB only goes to 16mb, my isa goes to 64mb. It does share the same 286 cpu though (as well as my buslogic BT-510a) :D
 
Last edited:
Le_Bear said:
Would you know the difference in a 4030 and a DC200? They look similar but have different rows of slot connectors. The chips on the 4030 say 92, and the 200s say 93. The 200 also only has a single floppy connector. I've got several of those cards here but they're all a little different.
Click to expand...
They don't look similar at all. The DC200 is an ISA card and the DC-4030vl is a VLB card, for starters.
 
You can also simply add something like an Imation Superdrive for the second 1.44MB disk and put the 1.2MB on the primary controller.

Several ISA SCSI controllers can support 3 floppies on a single cable (e.g. Future Domain 1600 series, Ulstrastor, most DTC) or be modified to do so with a simple jumper wire. Clearly, you need to make up a special 3-floppy cable and add a driver for the 3rd drive.

Another option is a Sysgen Omnibridge or Micro Solutions Compati Card IV floppy controller. Either comes with its own BIOS and will support up to 4 drives. The CC is even better--you can put more than one of them in your box and run them as secondary controllers. One of my 486 boxes here has 6 floppies in it (I ran out of open bay slots after that).
 
Rumors... or misinformation... either way, I prefer to stick with facts. You can believe whatever you choose to believe but that doesen't make it any more likely to be true or useful.
 
oblivion said:
. . . i have 2 1.44mb floppy drives hooked up and i was thinking of adding a 1.2mb drive as well.
Click to expand...

Since you have two 1.44 drives, I guess you have a practical use for that, such as special copying technique, or no HDD storage.

If that is not the case, then you can simply replace one 1.44 drive with the 1.2.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top