Hi,
Can anyone help with Epson SD700AA 5.25" floppy drive configuration?
Google searches lead me to this document http://ftp.epson.com/desktop/SD800.TXT, but the best I can do is making drive spinning. It just won't read... a dead drive?
Here are the jumper settings on mine. But it is SD700BA.
There's four "right" settings for floppy jumpers on PCs, depending on whether your floppy interface expects a twisted cable or not, and whether it actually has a twisted cable or not... add another 1 if you're trying to make it B drive on a straight cable. Symptoms so far suggest it's set as second drive for a straight cable on a twisted cable or set or set as A drive in B drive position on a straight cable, or only half set right (motor select right, head select not)
Anyway... full details of system and cable required to sort it out. You're most likely to need the "standard A drive" setup with a twisted cable, but for older than 386, and non-AT standard systems things get weird.
Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.
The only info on a SD700 found keeps referring to it with a SD800 in a dual floppy in a single 5.25" drive configuration.
Based on the jumpers and silk screening and making a guess:
that it is currently jumped for ID0 so needs a straight cable, or change jumper on bottom to left pointing at 1 so set as ID1 and use the twisted end .
Going up the next 3 pin is for ID2 and ID3 so should be empty.
The S and D are for drive speed, Single 360rpm or D for dual 300/360, currently set for Single which is default for most drives (but may not be the same).
The L and H are for Logic Level of Mode signal, typical is High and is set for that. This is a guess on what these do !!
The R and D are for "ready signal" with RS and DS, R for Mon signal and D for DS signal. Should be set for DS but there are no jumpers on either. Also guessing on this but patterns with other drives...
Maybe someone else can figure it out more but at the minimum I am confident the drive is set at ID0, the drive speed set to single 360, and there need to be a jumper on the R and D pins for PC operation.
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
Thanks for all the feedback, I tried RS and DS but Windows XP can't read the floppy disk (I have A & B set to 5 1/2 drive in BIOS).
Edit:
It seems I'm making progress, the same jumper settings partially work on the 486. The drive now can format (with very weird clicking sound), but it gives General Failure for reading (after formatting the same disk)
Edit2:
The "General Failure" error was causing by unrecognized disk format, after reformatting with DOS the drive works flawlessly. Pictured is correct jumper settings. Also found a good tool for testing FDC.
