normanator
Experienced Member
Hello all. Have been working on un-mothballing a Compaq Deskpro 386/25 I've stored away for 18 years. Entire system still works splendidly except one issue: getting it to properly recognize a 3.5 1.44MB floppy drive. The system sees the drive, but no matter what I've tried, the Compaq Setup program and the CMOS always detect the 3.5" as a 5.25 1.2MB drive. Putting a disk into the 3.5" drive and doing "dir" causes the usual "Abort, Retry Fail?", except that selecting "Fail" will *sometimes* allow it to read the disk contents. Usually it just fails entirely or tries to read the directory table and issues a nasty "INT24 failure" error. I'm guessing the partial success is just a coincidence with how 5.25 and 3.5 directory tables are stored. But it definitely won't access any files.
I really don't recall having this issue when I boxed it up, but admittedly it's been many years.
Here's the configuration:
What I've tried:
Never had this issue before with any PC, and not sure where else to go. Any insights or ideas are appreciated.
I really don't recall having this issue when I boxed it up, but admittedly it's been many years.
Here's the configuration:
- Using a Compaq ESDI controller card (P/N 000996) to drive 2 FDDs and a 315MB HDD.
- FDD 1 = 5.25" 1.2MB (works fine)
- FDD 2 = 3.5" Teac FD-235HF 1.44MB with adapter, common for it's day (see picture)
What I've tried:
- There don't appear to be any jumpers or switches on the ESDI card to set drive types, only IRQ settings and such. I've included a pic of the ESDI jumper and SW500 settings (the red switch block at the top of the card). All are set to default positions, and have not moved since last using this machine years ago.
- I've added DRIVPARM /D:1 /C /F:7 /I in the config.sys to try and force DOS to see the correct type. No joy.
- I've tried a different known good working 3.5" FDD, but same problem.
- I've tried enabling the OP setting on the FDD adapter, which brings in pin 34. No idea what that setting does, but didn't make any difference. The default position is OP=OFF.
Never had this issue before with any PC, and not sure where else to go. Any insights or ideas are appreciated.