5.25 floppy drive trouble on Dell 4400

[IndirectX9]

Hello again, VCF!

Now the Dell 4400 might not be classified as vintage yet, but I need some help configuring a 2 floppy system, 1 drive being the 1.2 megabyte Epson sd600 5.25 floppy drive (jumper on DS 2), and the standard floppy drive (DS 1 by default?). I used a universal 5.25 card edge connector cable w/ 3.5 ports and 34 pin mother board connector, and when I removed the terminator and set the jumper to DS 2, both drive lights would be on, and if I were to put a disk in either drive, the motors will be spinning. I tried configuring the 5.25 drive in the BIOS but it only showed 1 diskette drive as being detected, (which was the 3.5). So after switching the connector to use the twisted end on the 3.5 floppy drive, the same thing occurs, both drive lights are on and do not respond to DOS commands, so only after removing the 3.5 inch connector, I kept it on the 5.25 drive and it appeared to work, but still wont respond to DOS command ( I believe it is because of the drive jumper and the terminator). How can I use both drives with the system? Is it Possible to use both drives?


Note: The OS is Windows 98 SE
Note 2: The BIOS DOES have support for 5.25 inch floppy drives, it is the configuration that I'm having issues with

Thank you.
-IndirectX9

 

[SomeGuy]

I tried configuring the 5.25 drive in the BIOS but it only showed 1 diskette drive as being detected,

The BIOS doesn't really "detect" drives. A BIOS that supports two drives should have two drive type selection options in their setup, one for each drive.

So you should see something like:
A: 1.44MB
B: NONE

Where you just change the B: option to 1.2mb.

If it only lets you select a drive type for A:, then you have a lobotomized BIOS and hardware that saves the oh so expensive cost of a single drive select wire by supporting only one floppy drive.

 

[IndirectX9]

Okay, so after fixing a cable mishap and setting the jumper on the 5.25 to DS 0 it still will not show both drives, only FLOPPY A under the DISKETTE CONFIGURATION in the BIOS, which is Dell Dimension SETUP version A05.

Now, I am still unsure if it is the bios that refuses to accept the 5.25 drive or an improper 5.25 jumper setting.

 

[Stone]

DS 0 is not a valid configuration if you are using a twisted ribbon cable. With the twisted cable both drives need to be set to DS 1.

 

[IndirectX9]

I set the 5.25 jumper back to 5.25, but now both drive lights are on. I'm guessing I need to physically disable the 3.5 floppy and set up the 5.25 drive.

 

[vwestlife]

With a twisted floppy cable, both drives should be set to the second drive select position, regardless of the specific numbers labelled. That is, if the positions are labeled DS0 to DS3, choose DS1. If the positions are labeled DS1 to DS4, choose DS2.

Here's how to cable the drives:

[Controller]==============================[Drive B:]=====X twist X=====[Drive A:]

That will work for 95% of systems, but a small minority have the drive positions on the cable reversed, so Drive A goes first, and Drive B goes after the twist. This is sometimes seen in newer systems (Pentium II era and newer) which were really only intended to ever come with one floppy drive, so they cut costs by including a cable with only one floppy drive connector on it, with a non-twisted cable. My Compaq Deskpro SB is like this, and it really confused me when I was attempting to set up a second floppy drive, until I figured it out!