VOGONS


First post, by vlad557776

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Hello.

I have a sizeable collection of older (undumped) software on 5.25in disks, and recently I have acquired a 5.25in 1.2MB FDD that was marked as "working" by the seller to dump the floppies.

However, no matter what DIP switch configuration I try, plugging it into a known working 486 tower and configuring it as a 5.25in 1.2MB drive in the BIOS results in a "not ready" error by DOS 6.22 whenever trying to access a floppy.

I have tried multiple floppies, including an original Microsoft C 5.1 disk (MS disks tend to usually read for me) but nothing works.

May it be a result of faulty floppies or a broken drive, and if yes, how do I repair the FDD?

Thanks in advance.

Reply 1 of 7, by Deunan

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vlad557776 wrote on 2023-06-24, 13:16:

However, no matter what DIP switch configuration I try, plugging it into a known working 486 tower and configuring it as a 5.25in 1.2MB drive in the BIOS results in a "not ready" error by DOS 6.22 whenever trying to access a floppy.

A photo would help, in particular in this model the RDY jumper must be set properly. And the problem you have would indicate it's not.
Also, FYI avoid any Windows 9x OS or the floppies you try to preserve will be modified without you even knowing. DOS 6.22 is a safe OS.

Reply 2 of 7, by vlad557776

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Attached is a photo of the DIP switches. Might be a bit hard to see, sorry.

Is the RDY jumper set to the right position?

Reply 3 of 7, by Deunan

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RDY looks fine (in DC position) but 2S should not be set unless the mobo properly suppports 3-mode drives. That's the blue jumper. Move it left (to HS position) or try removing completly. Also the jumper right above should be set to LD I think, but that shouldn't really matter much.

Reply 4 of 7, by Horun

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Yep ! According to https://www.bamsoftware.com/computers/floppies/index.html
DS1 [o o] o DS0
DS3 o o o DS2
MM [o o] o MS
DCH [o o] o RDY
HD o [o o] LD
LS o o o 2S
is for standard PC AT

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 5 of 7, by vlad557776

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I need to archive 1.2MB floppies, as that's what most of my stuff is on. Will I be able to do so with the HD/LD jumper set to LD?

Reply 6 of 7, by Deunan

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Frankly I'm not sure what the HD/LD jumper does actually, since a 5.25" drive doesn't have a density sensor, and there is a separate control for the spindle speed. Could be a single/double step control? I can't remember what I did with it but I'm sure it works in LD setting on a PC as a standard 1.2M drive.

Reply 7 of 7, by vlad557776

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Sorry for not keeping you updated, I was trying to find a cleaning floppy as removing the blue jumper didn't work and I thought the heads were dirty. Installing the drive the other way around got me to a Not Ready prompt again, but just asking DOS to retry succeeded. Since then I have read multiple disks from my collection including a copy protected one, the FDD lives on!