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360 K 5.25" floppy in an XT

marc.hull

Experienced Member
Joined
May 26, 2007
Messages
107
I have an old Vtech Laser XT clone that I am trying to get to work and have a couple of questions about the floppy drive on IBM clones.....

1) does the drive need to be jumpered as drive 1 or drive 2 in a single drive system ?
2) Does the drive need to be place before the cable twist or after the twist or is that only an issue with 3.5" drives with no selection jumper ?

Sorry for the elementary stuff but I haven't played with much PC stuff.
 
Your floppy should have a jumper setting that involves being either DS0 or DS1, if it was not a post-PC model that is preset for IBM PC use. You need to have it set up as DS1 to work with the PC's modified floppy interface.

2) Drive A: needs to be attached to connector furthest from the drive controller; the middle connector becomes drive B:. If you have a 5 connector cable, only use 1 connector from each pair. Same principle as with the 3.5" drives.
 
And ensure that you use the correct type of twisted cable:

floppy_vs_hard.jpg
 
Also, some drives number the select lines DS1 to DS4 (instead of 0 to 3), in which case the jumper should be on DS2; i.e. the second one, whichever way they're numbered.
 
you can also use a straight through cable *No Twist* Then the first drive is jumpered DS0 or DS1 depending on where they start numbering, the second would be 1 or 2 and so on. I have done this before and it works just the same.
 
you can also use a straight through cable *No Twist* Then the first drive is jumpered DS0 or DS1 depending on where they start numbering, the second would be 1 or 2 and so on. I have done this before and it works just the same.
That'll work with hard disks, but it's not "just the same" with floppy drives and depends on the drive type and jumper configuration; drive A would be selected with the MOTOR ON signal instead of Drive select, and its MOTOR ON signal would not be activated at all.
 
That'll work with hard disks, but it's not "just the same" with floppy drives and depends on the drive type and jumper configuration; drive A would be selected with the MOTOR ON signal instead of Drive select, and its MOTOR ON signal would not be activated at all.

OK then. Selecting the drive as the second (ds1 on this particular one) and using a twisted cable with the drive after the twist did it. Thanks for everyone's help.
 
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