Last Motherboard to Support a 5.25 Drive \ VOGONS

Last Motherboard to Support a 5.25 Drive

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First post, by ubertrout

Posted on 2024-09-13, 19:56

ubertrout Offline

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So, for reasons of...mainly PC build eccentricity, I'd like to build something with modern-level performance and a working 5.25 drive. It's pretty easy with X58 boards - Gigabyte boards and others work with a 6-core Xeon for decent performance, but the system is held back by stuff like lack of AVX. I've begun another build with the Asrock Z68 Extreme4, and it has a floppy header, but I can't tell if it supports 5.25 drives? I've seen elsewhere that it did, but it's possible I was mistaken? The only more powerful board I'm aware of is the Asrock Z77 Extreme6, which gets PCI-E Gen 3 and a few other enhancements, alongside Fat1ty branding. But does that support a 5.25 drive either?

Reply 1 of 4, by kmeaw

Posted on 2024-09-13, 20:41

kmeaw Offline

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You can use an external USB floppy drive controller that supports 5.25" floppy drives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjd2jSHBw7E
https://mattfife.com/?p=3793

I have personally used Greaseweazle with a combo floppy drive (3.5"+5.25") on a modern system and was able to read my disks.

Reply 2 of 4, by ubertrout

Posted on 2024-09-14, 12:35

ubertrout Offline

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I have a Greaseweazle, but I want it to actually work with Windows and such. I did a video about making one on a first-gen I7 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JJEffLz_Q8) and I want to try with Ivy Bridge, but the drive isn't playing well with the Asrock Z68 Extreme4. The manual doesn't say 1.44 mb only but kind of implies it, but it doesn't explicitly say 5.25 supported either.

Reply 3 of 4, by Horun

Posted on 2024-09-14, 13:58

Horun Offline

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Looking at the Z68 Extreme4 manual page 72 it shows only enable/disable the floppy port and no other settings like drive size select (like the Z77 Pro bios) so most likely only supports 3.5" 1.44Mb drive, like my Z77 Pro.
Just a guess...

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 4 of 4, by ubertrout

Posted on 2024-09-15, 19:35

ubertrout Offline

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Joined: 2021-04-13, 21:31

Yeah, I got the same on my Z68 Extreme4. So is there a Sandy/Ivy Bridge board which supports a 5.25 drive or it effectively ended with X58?

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