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Compaq Portable (3.5" Floppy)

hu12332

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Jan 24, 2019
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Hi, so I've recently purchased a Compaq Portable, I'd like to be able to use my 3.5" Diskettes with it but i'm having a hard time. I got a Power Splitter Cable ( 5.25" to 2 x 3.5" Floppy Convert from Molex to 2X FDD Leads ) and a new floppy drive ribbon as well as two 3.5", 1.44Mb floppy drivers. I've disconnected the 5.25" Floppy drives and installed the new 3.5 drivers, when booting up the PC i get a diskette error, which i says "Diskette Error, Replace and strike any key when ready".
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think if you're running the factory floppy controller it won't work. You need a controller that can handle the drives, and you shouldn't need drivers for it
 
The stock controller can handle 3.5” drives fine in 720K mode (I know, because I just 3.5” drive in my Portable just recently), but it won’t work with 1.44MB disks.
 
Known good 3.5" drives? You're using a true 720k diskette? I seem to recall that formatting a 720k diskette in a 1.44mb drive doesn't suffer from the same affliction as formatting a low density 5.25" in a high density drive, but asking just in case. Also, you mentioned dual drives. The SW1 on the mobo is set for dual?

Never tried this myself, so I'll defer to anyone who has. If you get it working, I may try this too. Would reduce the workload on my tween system to move data back and forth.
 
I also think you're stuck with using 720k floppies. The Portable II had a later ROM revision that allowed 1.44 floppies.
 
Hi, so I've recently purchased a Compaq Portable, I'd like to be able to use my 3.5" Diskettes with it but i'm having a hard time. I got a Power Splitter Cable ( 5.25" to 2 x 3.5" Floppy Convert from Molex to 2X FDD Leads ) and a new floppy drive ribbon as well as two 3.5", 1.44Mb floppy drivers. I've disconnected the 5.25" Floppy drives and installed the new 3.5 drivers, when booting up the PC i get a diskette error, which i says "Diskette Error, Replace and strike any key when ready".

Which Compaq portable have you bought? I II or III? I have 286 Compaq portable III. I had to download a copy of the setup disk on 5.25 media, use it to alter the BIOS settings from 5.25 to 1.44MB then fit the 1.44MB drive after which I could boot up off DOS 6.22. Also had to hack a BIOS battery unit together so it would keep the settings.
 
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