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Installing a second Floppy drive

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by jake bartlett

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Ok. I have a new computer and I want to install 2 floppy drives into it. Theres no important reason for this, just novelty really. I have 2 floppy drives, both panasonic, and enough power cables. I found a floppy ribbon cable the other day which has an extra plug for the second device and one which i think is for the really old 5.25" floppy drives. i have them both in the computer, and now i want to install the second device and get it to show up as B drive in my computer, please help! I have tried everything from browsing my bios to using install new hardware, and i cant get the second devie to work.

9 replies

by sgt_shultz

i think you only get to have 1 each 5.25 or 3.5 via the flopppy disk controller. that's it. no provision in the hardware spec. maybe a usb floppy? not sure that would work either...
if you like fooling with hardware, why not try linux? (smile)

by jake bartlett

ummm thanks for your help but these other guys seem pretty positive that it is posible, even though i havent been sucsessfull.

by dmiles

The cable allows a desktop computer to have two floppy drives connected to one controller like the IDE / EIDE controller. Because floppy drives generally do not have a master / slave jumper the drivers are defined by cable select. In addition to the one connector found before and after the twist there may also be an additional two connectors which connect to the 5.25" floppy disk drive.

by jake bartlett

My cable has only one of the old card edge conncters for the 5.25" drives. Anyway, this doesnt tell me how exactly i would go about enabling the second device.

by chris910

There are provisions for 2 floppies in the standards abd your floppy will appear as drive B when everything is working. Lets start with the cable the two the connectors that you want to connect to the drives are the two closest together and seperated by a twist. (you can ignore the older card edge connector)the other connector at the far end connects to the motherboard. Many of these old cables did not label pin 1 on the connector because it could be determined by looking at the red stripe on the ribbon cable. Make sure that power is connected to the drives.
Next go into the bios, turn on the secondary ide device and select the 3.5" 1.44Mb floppy (sometimes both of these are rolled into 1 setting.)

by jake bartlett

Thanks for your help and im sure you know what you are talking about, but it didnt work, my m/board bios (it's an ASUS P4P800 Delux) has only 1 floppy setting listed, Legacy Floppy A. It is set to 3.5" 1.44MB. This is on the very first page in my bios underneath the system date and time and above the IDE drive settings. Perhaps like you suggested the both of them are rolled into 1 setting, but it just wont work.

by thechas

When you start your PC, does the light on the front of both floppy drives flash on for a few seconds?

If one light does not come on, or 1 stays on, you have a hardware issue.

If 1 light stays on, the cable for that drive is likely connected backward.

Next, enter BIOS setup.
On the first, or Standard Settings page, look at your floppy drive options.
If the BIOS does not list a second floppy drive, it may only support connecting 1 floppy drive.
If a second floppy drive setting is available, make sure it is set to the correct drive type.

Next, go to the advanced chip-set configuration page.
You are looking for the option to report floppy drives to Windows.
This option needs to be enabled for at least the first boot with a new floppy drive.

Save changes and exit setup.

If Windows does NOT find the second floppy drive, you need to check a Windows Setting.

I can't find it on my XP system, but under Windows 9X:
Right click on My Computer.
Select Properties.
Click on Performance.
Click on Drives.
For floppy drives, make sure that the box to check for new floppy drives is checked.

If you had to check the box, re-boot.

Windows should now find the second floppy.

Chas

by jake bartlett

Once again, thankyou, but no luck. The light on my top (working A drive) floppy comes on when i am using or accessing it, but the bottom one stays blank. i once purposely turned the data ribbon cable on the second floppy upside-down, and both drives' lights came on and stayed on (still no B drive listed, and now A drive wouldnt read a disk). As for my bios, I cant find anything to do with floppy drivves other than changing the type for Legacy Floppy A, not even the boot up floppy seek option my older asus motherboard has. As for the "check for new floppy drives" I cant find it in windows xp either, sometimes i miss 98 and 2000. If you or anyone reading this thinks they know what is wrong, email me (jake@westnet.com.au) because I am closing the question and you will no longer be able to reply to this post.

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