What capacity disks can this 5.25 floppy drive handle? \ VOGONS

What capacity disks can this 5.25 floppy drive handle?

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First post, by IBMFan

Posted on 2020-11-12, 13:58

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It's a Chinon F-051MD. It's similar to the drive in the Enhancer 2000 floppy drive for C64 and the Staff C1 Apple II clone but this one has and edge connector and power connector for PC.
I couldn't find any useful information about it. The drive needs repair because the drive head is stuck so I can't try it now.

https://www.oldcomputr.com/staff-c1-apple-ii-clone/
https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Enhancer_2000
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NfPbkIdYg4

Reply 1 of 6, by Synaps3

Posted on 2020-11-12, 14:42

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Well, from a quick search, it appears to be only 180K.

Systems:
BOARD | RAM | CPU | GPU
ASUS CUV4X-D | 2GB | 2 x PIII Tualatin ~1.5 GHz | Radeon HD 4650
DELL DIMENSION XPS 466V | 64MB | AMD 5x86 133MHz | Number Nine Ticket to Ride
Sergey Kiselev's Micro8088 10MHz | 640KB | Trident VGA

Reply 2 of 6, by IBMFan

Posted on 2020-11-12, 16:16

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180K disk? Never heard of it, can't even find one on Ebay.

Reply 3 of 6, by Errius

Posted on 2020-11-12, 16:20

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Single sided disks (SS DD) formatted with DOS 2.0 or later.

I got a box of them out of curiosity. "Parrot" brand.

"This all reminds me when i took the windows vista sticker thingy off my old laptop, and on my washing machine as a joke. A few days later said washing machine stopped working. I still think this cannot be a coincidence."

Reply 4 of 6, by darry

Posted on 2020-11-12, 16:36

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IBMFan wrote on 2020-11-12, 16:16:

180K disk? Never heard of it, can't even find one on Ebay.

You should be able to use 360K disks, but only one side will have data on it . You will not be able to flip such disks to use the other side because that would require a second round index hole to be present .

Reply 5 of 6, by IBMFan

Posted on 2020-11-12, 17:36

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Interesting, thanks. I'll repair it and try it with my 360K disks. Any idea what kind of PC could have used a 180K only drive? IC date codes indicate it was made in 1984.

Reply 6 of 6, by Errius

Posted on 2020-11-13, 01:21

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darry wrote on 2020-11-12, 16:36:

IBMFan wrote on 2020-11-12, 16:16:

180K disk? Never heard of it, can't even find one on Ebay.

You should be able to use 360K disks, but only one side will have data on it . You will not be able to flip such disks to use the other side because that would require a second round index hole to be present .

I assume that such disks formatted in a double sided drive are completely illegible in a single sided drive?

The original 1981 IBM PC had single sided drives that, using DOS 1.0, formatted disks to 160 KB. Later versions of DOS introduced support for double sided disks (320 KB) and higher data densities (180 KB/360 KB). This drive wouldn't have been from an IBM machine though. Possibly from a PC clone.

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