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Attaching a 3.5" floppy drive to 5150

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c8220

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I've been trying to attack a 3.5" floppy drive to my ibm 5150 so I can boot DOS 3.3. I've been able to attach the drive to a power supply and it turns on when the machine powers on. I'm not sure how to attach the floppy cable though. I used the cable from the 3.5" drive and taped each wire to the floppy controller card in order. To make the DOS disk I used a 1.44mb disk and formatted it as 720k. I'm not sure if my problem is because of how I connected the cable or because I used a 1.44mb disk. Thanks for the help!
 
c8220 said:
I've been trying to attack a 3.5" floppy drive to my ibm 5150 so I can boot DOS 3.3. I've been able to attach the drive to a power supply and it turns on when the machine powers on. I'm not sure how to attach the floppy cable though. I used the cable from the 3.5" drive and taped each wire to the floppy controller card in order. To make the DOS disk I used a 1.44mb disk and formatted it as 720k. I'm not sure if my problem is because of how I connected the cable or because I used a 1.44mb disk. Thanks for the help!
Click to expand...

Does the floppy controller support a 1.44 drive?
 
Stone said:
Put the 5.25" drive in another computer, write the disk, then put the 5.25" drive back in the 5150.
Click to expand...

Exactly. And after you have a 5.25" DOS boot disk, you will have lots of options to do whatever you want in terms of transferring files or writing more disks. It's that first step of getting the OS on a disk you can use. :)
 
c8220 said:
... it turns on when the machine powers on.
Click to expand...

If motor and/or activity LED turn on when computer is powered on it is possible that you flipped the floppy cable, or switched GND (all odd numbered pins) with signal pins (even numbered pins).
The connection between floppy disk controller to floppy is straight, excluding the twist on wires 10 to 16.

Generally IBM PC or XT should be able to boot and work with 720 KB disks. When using HD (1.44 MB) disk make sure the high-density hole (one without write protect slider) is covered. You can use a piece of sticky tape to do that. 1.44 MB detect disk type using that hole, and 1.44 MB formatted to 720 KB will not work properly if that hole left open.
 
This can be done, I did it with my 5150 a few months back. As stated on minuszerodegrees site, you use the floppy cable in reverse. You can use 1.44 meg disks but they need to be imaged to 720k. There's quite a few sites that have 720k floppy images with DOS that you can download. Your problem is most likely in matching the pins on the floppy cable to the controller. Get a cable that has the 5.25" card connectors and the 3.5" molex connectors.
 
You can use edge connector adapters, something like this: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290897032039

I was able to connect a Sony 1.44MB drive to my 5150 in this way. I found some formatted 720KB 3.5 disks and put DOS 3.31 on them via my laptop and an external USB FDD. It is a nice bridge to be able to get data back and forth to the old machine. I also added a parallel port Zip 100MB drive for bigger files.
 
You can also crimp a 34-position IDC header connector onto an existing 5.25" cable, next to the corresponding 5.25" connector. The connectors are cheap and if you take care either using a manual crimper or a small vise, the job is very simple.
 
c8220 said:
I've been trying to attack a 3.5" floppy drive to my ibm 5150 so I can boot DOS 3.3. I've been able to attach the drive to a power supply and it turns on when the machine powers on. I'm not sure how to attach the floppy cable though. I used the cable from the 3.5" drive and taped each wire to the floppy controller card in order. To make the DOS disk I used a 1.44mb disk and formatted it as 720k. I'm not sure if my problem is because of how I connected the cable or because I used a 1.44mb disk. Thanks for the help!
Click to expand...

My 5150 uses an external 1.44 Meg floppy drive with standard 1.44 Meg formatting. The drive is manufactured by Microsolutions and called a "Back-Pack". It connected via parallel port using a driver that loads the required software and config.sys files so it's always ready when the computer is booted.

You can find them on E-Bay. Here's one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MicroSoluti...=US_Floppy_Zip_Jaz_Drives&hash=item3f1ebd95d8 Some members in the forums may have them for much less.
 
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