• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

IBM 5170 1.44mb floppy drive question

robbo007

robbo007

Experienced Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
287
Location
Iberian Peninsula
Hi all,
I've got an IBM 5170 with a 1.2MB floppy drive working fine. I want to add a 1.44mb drive. Can I daisy chain it off the same floppy drive cable? My controller only has one floppy drive connector.

If so what type of cable do I need?

Cheers,

Rob
 
A standard floppy ribbon cable has dual floppy connectors. I have several NOS floppy ribbons with full connector support if you need one. But I'm not sure that all 5170 BIOS versions support the 1.44 drive. You should be able that check on that at minuszerodegrees.
 
Hi Stone,
Thanks for the reply. If you could mail out one I would be happy to Paypal you the costs. Let me know via PM.
I think my bios supports it as I have the option to choose, 1.44mb. I'll check the version with the one on the webpage tonight.
Cheers,
 
robbo007 said:
Hi all,
I've got an IBM 5170 with a 1.2MB floppy drive working fine. I want to add a 1.44mb drive. Can I daisy chain it off the same floppy drive cable? My controller only has one floppy drive connector.

If so what type of cable do I need?

Cheers,

Rob
Click to expand...

Early 5 1/4 floppy drives used a card edge connector. Later 3 1/2 ones used a socket. One of the goodies in my "box o' tricks" is a universal cable that has ample length between the controller connector and the first pair of drive connectors, one of of each type, the IBM standard twist, then another pair of connectors. That gives me essentially a universal floppy cable. These are not too hard to make up and can still be occasionally found on ebay.
 
ok thanks.

So if the actual onboard bios (not the bootup disk) shows the 1.44MB this does not mean that its supported? I'll check my bios version tonight.
 
The one I have looks like this:

P2-FloppyCable.jpg


and is described at the bottom of this page:

http://rays-place.net/Extras/PCTechGuide/tutorials/FLDrive1.htm

It's about 36" (90 cm) long.
 
robbo007 said:
So if the actual onboard bios (not the bootup disk) shows the 1.44MB ...
Click to expand...
The BIOS chips on the IBM 5170 motherboard have no built-in SETUP program to "show" you anything.

SETUP is done by other means (examples at [here]).

robbo007 said:
I'll check my bios version tonight.
Click to expand...
The web page is [here].

If your motherboard does have the 11/15/85 BIOS chips, then 1.44M operation is achieved by:
1. Connect a 1.44M drive to the floppy controller.
2. Terminate per the diagram at [here].
3. Boot from a DOS boot diskette that contains GSETUP.EXE (available [here]).
4. Run GSETUP.EXE, changing the A: or B: setting (as appropriate) to the 1.44M option.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top