Toshiba T3200SX floppy drive

[andy]

The floppy drive in my T3200SX is bad, and I suspect I could replace it with a standard floppy drive if I built an adapter cable. Does anyone know the pinout?

 

[MikeS]

The floppy drive in my T3200SX is bad, and I suspect I could replace it with a standard floppy drive if I built an adapter cable. Does anyone know the pinout?

TABLE B-9 FDD Connector Pin Assignment

ÚÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³ Pin ³    Signal     ³  I/O  ³  Pin  ³    Signal     ³ I/O ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄ´
³  1  ³      VCC      ³   O   ³   2   ³   INDEX;000   ³  I  ³
³  3  ³      VCC      ³   O   ³   4   ³   FDSELA;000  ³  O  ³
³  5  ³      VCC      ³   O   ³   6   ³   DSKCHG;000  ³  I  ³
³  7  ³      VCC      ³   O   ³   8   ³   READY;000   ³  I  ³
³  9  ³   NOTCH0;000  ³   I   ³  10   ³   MONA;000    ³  O  ³
³ 11  ³   LOWDNS;000  ³   O   ³  12   ³   FDCDCR;000  ³  O  ³
³ 13  ³      GND      ³       ³  14   ³   STEP;000    ³  O  ³
³ 15  ³      GND      ³       ³  16   ³   WDATA;000   ³  O  ³
³ 17  ³      GND      ³       ³  18   ³   WGATE;000   ³  O  ³
³ 19  ³      GND      ³       ³  20   ³   TRACKO;000  ³  I  ³
³ 21  ³      GND      ³       ³  22   ³   WPROTC;000  ³  I  ³
³ 23  ³      GND      ³       ³  24   ³   RDDA;000    ³  I  ³
³ 25  ³      GND      ³       ³  26   ³   SIDE;000    ³  O  ³
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÙ

 

[SpidersWeb]

VCC in that diagram goes to +5 on the floppy drive (which is all most 3.5" drives use) so there is no need for a power cable too.

Two options - an adaptor which could be troublesome regarding space - or unsolder the original 26 pin cable from the original drive and solder it pin by pin on the the new drive.

I got half way through this before I was like 'bugger it'. It's doable but takes patience and care - so many tiny little wires. There are replacement drives on ebay for outrageous prices (130-180USD) or better yet if you can find a T5200, T5200/100, or another T3200SX that is dead/broken - steal the drive out of that. There is also the option of an external 360KB drive via the parallel port (hence the LPT-A-B switch) and I have the diagram for that here:

                            CABLE PIN OUT


Toshiba  EXT FDD        SIGNAL NAME          Floppy Drive 34 Pin
  CONNECTOR                                  IDC CONNECTOR
    PIN                                           PIN
                       
    01                  Ready                      34
    02                  Index                      08
    03                  Track 0                    26
    04                  Write Protect              28
    05                  Read Data                  30
    10                  Motor Enable A             10
    11                  Motor Enable B             16
    12                  Write Data                 22
    13                  Write Enable               24
    15                  Select Head 1              32
    16                  Direction                  18
    17                  Step Pulse                 20
    23                  Ground (must be connected) 23
    25                  Ground (must be connected) 25

To boot from it, you flick the switch to "A".
A second hand disk drive will most certainly be the easiest option.

 

[andy]

Thanks, that looks like the standard 26 pin laptop floppy pinout. I've tried connecting a laptop drive by soldering the connector from the old floppy drive to a ribbon cable, and plugging that into a laptop drive. It seeks the drive, but won't boot from it (same symptoms as with the old drive). It just sits there forever spinning the disk. If I eject the disk, it reports that there's no bootable device.

The original hard drive seems to be bad (not detected by another computer), and I can't get it to recognize any IDE other hard drive that I connect. I'm starting to think the motherboard has a problem. I have to say that this is one of the worst put together systems I've seen. The fact that the screen is hard wired to the motherboard makes it very difficult to work on.

 

[MikeS]

Thanks, that looks like the standard 26 pin laptop floppy pinout.

Yup.

I have to say that this is one of the worst put together systems I've seen. The fact that the screen is hard wired to the motherboard makes it very difficult to work on.

Not much worse than many other laptops; just unplug the other end.

 

[andy]

Yup.
Not much worse than many other laptops; just unplug the other end.

Every other laptop I've worked on allows you to unplug the screen from the motherboard. Also, the screen on this one doesn't come apart easily.

I will post back if I find anything when I look at the motherboard in more detail. Hopefully there's a common cause for the floppy and IDE problems.

 

[SpidersWeb]

Yeah on this model the screen is a pain, but once loose there is enough cable to allow you to rotate it out of the way. Real nuisance when trying to insert SIMMs in the rear slots though (and finding SIMMs which work in there can take a lot of swaps!).

What other IDE drives did you try?