• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Guidance needed for setting up floppy drives for my XT

Zare said:
Yup they're out there. The issue is that a lot of them don't work.
This is the first google hit that I get

I'm 95% sure this is what I bought in local store, and it can't do 720kB disks.
Click to expand...

Agree that those "economical" USB drives, in general, suck and I think we have other threads on this issue. I have one on a Win 7 machine. It does work, sort of, sometimes, if I coax it.

My experiences are:

Will not format 720K disks (either 720K outright or 1.44K with the right hole covered).
Will format 1.44K disks

Will read and write 720K 3.5 that I formatted on a clone XT, or an old XP (1.44K disk right hole covered, Format a: /T:80/N:9).

I use this drive to transfer files and it does do that, BUT, do not think that they act like normal floppy drives because they don't. Basically, I have to 'browse' it from 'Devices and Printers' before explorer and other programs will see it. In practice, once I have written to it, I eject, and re-connect it to start working again with another disk. It sometimes goes off into bit space for long periods of time. So, for short tasks (like transferring) it has some use...and they are dirt cheap. Just don't think you are getting something like a "normal" internal drive.
 
Of course, what on earth was I thinking about? I mean, it is so obvious. How can people not know, at birth that, "their basic command set USB floppies are SCSI--same command set". Oh my shame, I shall make a good act of contrition and strive to do better.

falling danger.jpg

[I really do like you Chuck, it's just that sometimes you crack me up]
 
I guess that you and I both forget that I have 50+ years of working with these widgets,. :)

When USB floppies were new, I think that someone from Ricoh tried to tell me that theirs supported FM encoding. I told him to send me a sample--if it worked, I'd buy 1,000. Of course, it never happened.
 
I myself do not long for floppies or optical media for that matter. I've never trusted them.
 
Zare said:
I myself do not long for floppies or optical media for that matter. I've never trusted them.
Click to expand...
Consider when the diskette was introduced for general consumption--1972, IIRC. Hard disk drives were eye-wateringly expensive and the only other portable media for small systems were paper tape and magnetic cassette tape--neither of which were fast or convenient.

So floppies made sense.
 
Oh I'm not talking about the historical perspective. My case is in the minority - I was using 360kb floppies because the first modern computer I got was in 1995. For myself - not as a family PC.
Think how someone would think about DVD today if he had to use it as a daily driver. It would not be a balanced opinion ;)
 
The ones I have are Toshiba_PA3109U-1FDD. USB.
But so now seems 1 just have a bad or sticky 720/1,44 switch.
And that was the one I always use and just seldom have tried those 720k disks as I have very few of them in systems.
Due to fact 360k is not working from say win98, I thought the same about 720k and leave it there.

@Zare argument "I never trust floppy's"
I am the one who more trust a floppy disk over any other media. Besides a print out on paper.
Have 40yr old + floppies and still contain the data perfectly, and yess I am amazed about that.
The many failing hard disks is obvious.
Sticky heads, scratched disks, and so on.

Also have ones a failing USB-stick put in a computer and that had corrupted whole data on that hard drive never could be restored.
Ok ok, modern Hard drives have a smart sector fail detection system, true, still they fail too in the end.
As we talk here about vintage stuff, I talk about vintage.
From the 100ths of floppy disks I have, from 8"-3,5 only a hand full had been found defect due to fact of use as a start disk and over use
track 0,
You can see by eye its track 0, LoL.
The magnetic layer has gone due to over use those disks.

Even an incidental close by permanent magnet is more often not able to destroy the data.
Its amazing the strength of data storage on those simple floppy disks.
Yubb failing hardware, just repair or replace, as your data still is safe on those floppies.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top