2 Floppy Disk Drives

Hi I have a floppy related problem that I've tried my best to resolve but with no luck. It's a simple enough system running 1HDD, 2CDD and 2FDD and for the remainder of this thread don't waste your time wondering why I even want 1 FDD let alone 2, I just do and its not working!

So the problem is this, my mobo has one IDE slot for connecting a floppy drive, I have 2 drives to connect to said port. Therefore I have the relevant cable, 1 mobo con', 2 drives. But no matter what I do, I can't get both drives to work at the same time...

My first setup was a bit backwards I think, though it didn't occur to me at the time! Floppy disk cables have the sort of IXIIII cable at one end where some of the cords flip over (http://www.computerhope.com/help/floppy.htm) and I think I had this flip in the wrong place - between mobo and drive and not between the 2 drives as the link above indicates. Now that's fine, I got it wrong, rookie mistake but I'm using round cable so it didn' occur to me until I found that website! But... When I had the cable the wrong way round, the computer eemed to be treating the 2 drives as one, both had power and when I tried to use either one to access a floppy it failed but both drives attempted to do so (light flashing, noise etc.) When I removed either one drive or the other from the system however the remaining drive functioned perfectly. No amount of driver or device management seems able to rectify this problem...

Then I realise it's backwards and fit the cable correctly! Now however, only one drive is working, the one closest to the mobo, the other is no longer attempting to read when I try a disk in the working drive. On the flip side the one drive is at least working correctly now... The problem is, no matter what I've tried so far I've been totally unable to add a second floppy drive to the device manager, it simply refuses to accept the fact that it exists (it's as identical a model to the original drive as I could obtain - Sony)

So that's the problem, I'm running XP off an Advent T9102 standard system (P4, though several components have changed since it came home for the first time!) Any suggestions are more than welcome, I'm just totally baffled now after trying everything I can think of and visiting dozens of websites. Any ideas let me know!!!

You must go into the BIOS and make sure that A: and B: are both enabled and reserved for 1.44MB floppy disks

I think...

ww that was quick thanks! I think I may have messed with my Bios before but I have no idea how to do what you just said so any ideas!?

I don't know if the BIOS setting worked or not, but worse comes to worse, could you get a usb floppy?

To be honest, usb floppies are a relatively new thing to me!!! (And I'm only 23 so no old jokes!) but the problem would be that I need internal drives, 2 permanent ones and there's only so much space to fit them in (custom case) so the drives I have are really my only option.

I'm more than happy to try tinkering with the BIOS as right now I only have 1 floppy working at all so it sounds like this may help. What I'm not prepared to do however is just dive into my computer settings and hit random options! So if anyone knows how to do what aja suggested please let me know (iddiots guide if you will!)

Not sure if the bios even supports two floppys, because only an old system (forgot which was it) supports double FDD.

Got digital camera, why not take a snapshot of the bios screen on the FDD setting screen and post here.

Check floppy ribbons and be sure the pins on the back of the floppy drive are not bent. I had tons of problems back in the day with bent pins and defective floppy ribbons.

Did this thread get bumped from 1992?

tom10167 said:

Did this thread get bumped from 1992?

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Did they have floppies back in 92?

Floppies are for installing raid drivers during windows installation sequence, and raid was pretty uncommon back then, so I doubt anyone had floppies.

petteyg359 said:

OP, if you're using a modern motherboard, you're not going to be able to make it work. The floppy controllers and/or BIOS (not sure whether the limitation is hardware, firmware, or both) on newer motherboards only support a single drive. I know I had Pentium II and III systems that supported multiple floppy drives, but I don't remember whether my Athlon XP (never had a Pentium IV) board did. According to Intel's site, the floppy controller used on their chipsets since 815P (if not earlier, that's the earliest I looked up) only supports a single floppy drive. 1.44MB, 2.88MB, or "three-way" (no idea what a "three way" floppy drive is).

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My IP35 Pro supports 2 floppies, and it's a wee bit newer than an 815P. (Digicam not handy, so this screenshot of the manual will have to do).

OP: Your bios should have a screen that looks like this. If you see in that picture where Drive B is set to "None", that would be changed to "1.44M, 3.5in." on a dual floppy system.

petteyg359 said:

tom10167, and especially Xaero_toast: You're not helping OP, here...

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OP's question was addressed in post #2. That is almost certainly his issue. Until he reports back that solution did not work, I don't feel it's bad etiquette for the discussion to wander a little bit.

At any rate, I apologize to any who did not find my comic relief to be either comic, or relieving

-XT

Deleted my previous post, as I have now noticed that OP listed his system at the bottom of his post. Assuming the motherboard is still original, it has a 915P chipset. According to Intel's own docs, the 915P supports a single floppy drive only.

bummer. looks like usb is the only viable option.

I didn't know they existed, because I'd only seen external usb floppies, but there's an internal one at the egg..

As long as the reason for the B: drive isn't dos related, I'd imagine that would still get it done.

Xaero_toast said:

Did they have floppies back in 92?

Floppies are for installing raid drivers during windows installation sequence, and raid was pretty uncommon back then, so I doubt anyone had floppies.

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Yes, actually the ones we use today are not "floppies" they are "stiffies" Floppies are what the old 5.25" and 8" were. But they were not used for installing raid drivers. They were used for transporting data from one PC to the other when your 9600baud modem would have taken a week to transfer a few megabytes of information (unless you were well to do and could afford a CD burner)

(My first PC with floppies, The computer was in a LARGE desktop case, 18" wide 18" deep, 6-8" high. I had another identical case to house TWO!!!!! floppy drives. (8"))

Green monochrome monitor with keyboard all in one unit, was pretty sweet

Xaero_toast said:

bummer. looks like usb is the only viable option.

I didn't know they existed, because I'd only seen external usb floppies, but there's an internal one at the egg..

As long as the reason for the B: drive isn't dos related, I'd imagine that would still get it done.

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You can get an adpater cable for USB to internal header, if the external USB floppies are cheaper.

Xaero_toast said:

Did they have floppies back in 92?

Floppies are for installing raid drivers during windows installation sequence, and raid was pretty uncommon back then, so I doubt anyone had floppies.

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Actually pretty much everyone had floppies back then, it was the standard in removable storage. They may have been of the 5.25" variety (not sure when 3.5" came into play)

Back then windows (or dos) came on floppies.

You guys do realize that was a post, made in jest, poking fun at the largely useless nature of floppy drives, right?

lol, I caught on, surprised the other two didn't

Neur0mancer said:

They were used for transporting data from one PC to the other when your 9600baud modem would have taken a week to transfer a few megabytes of information (unless you were well to do and could afford a CD burner)

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(for clarification, this IS a real question, I'm not poking fun at anything)

Do 9600 baud modems and cd burners really go in the same sentence like that? I've been using CD burners since back when they only came at 2x, and then only in scsi, and even then, 9600baud was a long since forgotten thing of the past, and 56K had been common for a few years, IIRC.

Xaero_toast said:

You guys do realize that was a post, made in jest, poking fun at the largely useless nature of floppy drives, right?

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Well it can be hard to tell across the net some times. And I'm sure there are some people here who were'nt even thought of yet in '92 might not realize what the reason floppies ever existed.

jaymz9350 said:

Actually pretty much everyone had floppies back then, it was the standard in removable storage. They may have been of the 5.25" variety (not sure when 3.5" came into play)

Back then windows (or dos) came on floppies.

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My 286 had a 1.44 MB 3.5" floppy drive when I first got it in '92. Macs had single sided 3.5" floppy drives in '84.

Xaero_toast said:

You guys do realize that was a post, made in jest, poking fun at the largely useless nature of floppy drives, right?

Click to expand...

Xaero_toast said:

(for clarification, this IS a real question, I'm not poking fun at anything)

Do 9600 baud modems and cd burners really go in the same sentence like that? I've been using CD burners since back when they only came at 2x, and then only in scsi, and even then, 9600baud was a long since forgotten thing of the past, and 56K had been common for a few years, IIRC.

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Either it was a joke or you really had no clue! LOL

As for 9600 baud. 56k was invented after that I am pretty sure, and I googled CD burners and they were invented in 1988. Which is why I said only the well to do had one (CDROMs were pretty common though) 14.4 or maybe even 28k might have been around... but not hte norm. Hell the "internet" (as we know it today) was not really around. In the late 80's we dialed peoples computers to check out the BBS, not sure about 1992, but thats probably about right for the start of it.

9600 baud was FAST too, much better then my old 300 baud modem where you had to put the phone in a cradle.