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-- UPDATES --

Swapped out the flimsy plastic shelving for metal shelves instead.

Also decided to switch from a CF card to an original disc HDD, with a little help from this lovely piece of tech:

Also sourced a working 5.25" drive for the 486 (knowing that most magnetic media easily deteriorates versus CDs), and tested it with a physical copy of Police Quest 1.

However, I had to switch to a XT-CF-Lite for the CF card reader, and while it reads both floppy disc drives, the CD drive no-longer reads. I'll have to mess with the dip-switches to see what address conflicts there are that are making the CD-ROM not read, or if it's the ESS card.

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I also decided that the Sidewinder drivers suck for my Gameport-based M$ controllers, and now I'm using the base-line Win95 joystick drivers for my Sidewinder 3D Pro, and it friggin' works on the K6-2. I played some Tigershark with it in Glide, and I didn't have the stupid issues I was having with it before. If I wasn't using a Voodoo3 currently in that PC, I'd test it on Interstate '76 again and any of the other Glide-mode games that I was having issues in.

Addendum: I attempted to Retr0bright the face panel, and while it looks a bit lighter, the only thing I seemed to accomplish was making the front panel a might brittle. Long-story short, the power switch screw mounts snapped, and so now the power button is hanging out the side of the case. it still works fine, and nothing else seems to be messed up. Might be considering a new Baby-AT case though. 🙁

UPDATE: Because I did a poor job of utilizing RetroBright, the solution weakened the plastic stand-offs for the Power button, and they snapped off when I pushed the button in to power the computer on. (I'm just going to not worry about using that to solution again, and just stick to cleaning the cases I get as best I can with magic erasers and elbow grease.)

I was given a free 486 by a co-worker, and I decided it was time to do some case swapping. The Win95 components are now inside a different, new( -ish) PIONEX-branded PC case. One of the major issues with this new case, however, is that it is missing the 3.5-inch drive brackets for floppy and HDD mounting inside the case. I don't need it for the HDD since I have the removable caddy installed in the bottom 5.25-inch bay, but I'm not sure what to do about a floppy drive. Maybe twist tie it? I'd love to hear some suggestions. I may have to forgo a floppy drive for a different solution, but I don't really want to do that since I still have working floppy-disk drives and software that I'd like to use with them.
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I plan on attempting to patch up the other PC so that it can be used with the guts of this new 486, possibly with a longer screw to connect to the remaining stand-off.
I'll make a new thread for the 486 I got, since I wish to try and get it properly hooked up inside the old case. The issue there is that I believe I need to switch out the PSU for one that has a proper 3.3v rail. The motherboard I pulled from this new acquisition is a Socket 3 board with VLB sockets, and I'd love to try and put a 5x86 in there. I suppose of there's a means of converting power for that without replacing the current PSU, that might be fine. It definitely needs a new fan, since it has been occasionally started making loud "grinding" noises from time to time.

I may need to look into a new Winsock controller card since the current one didn't want to recognized the floppy drive when I tested it. It reads the HDD at least, when I tested it, and since I recently backed it up and then cleaned it with a fresh DOS 6.22 install, it seems to be still quite usable.
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I also removed the CF reader from 486 since it wasn't fitting in the machine, instead going with a 1gb HDD, as well as a 3COM EtherLink III networking card to -attempt- to connect it to a LAN or maybe see if it can connect to the internet with it (if there's even anything out there to connect to, that is). It's been an interesting ordeal, but one I'm hoping to get working to mess around with it, even in a limited capacity.

Argh, I hate it when that happens. They take away the entire cage when trying to take away the HDD. I had the same situation and ended up building metal brackets myself and drilling holes in them to make it work. You'll need to plan it carefully though, but it's totally doable.

wbahnassi wrote on 2025-12-20, 21:16:

Argh, I hate it when that happens. They take away the entire cage when trying to take away the HDD. I had the same situation and ended up building metal brackets myself and drilling holes in them to make it work. You'll need to plan it carefully though, but it's totally doable.

Since my main account has been banned ( issues with email? I don't know what, but the Admin form has been sent ), I will be posting under this new account.

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Did you buy and cut the metal yourself? Or did you find someone who has proper metal working skill and can do commissioned work?

JDZero wrote on 2026-01-08, 03:51:

Did you buy and cut the metal yourself? Or did you find someone who has proper metal working skill and can do commissioned work?

My father in-law did it for me. He made it look easy. I just gave him accurate drawings of the shape with dimensions and hole locations. He grabbed a flat sheet of scrap metal (about 0.5mm thick), and marked the measurements on it then started cutting it with metal scissors, and bent the pieces to bring them to shape (L-shaped section). Next he tapped the hole locations by a pointy tool then finally drilled them.. He did it in front me in the living room in like 5 minutes without any power tools 😅

I think the choice of metal sheet was perfect because it was thin enough to be easy to work with, but it came out very strong in the end after it took shape.

I was very happy in the end when I put the new brackets and they held up the drive in place sturdily.

Seeing as I am not certain if I can find someone willing to do ornamental metal work for a proper bay cage for a 3.5" drive in my area, I considered some options before I landed on a question:

Is there a converter for 5.25" drive bays to install 3.5" drives? -- And there is! 😁

While cable management was a bit of a pain to get this converter in place - the results work! And that's good enough while not looking out of place in an older PC case!

For something less to do with the PC's, and more for convenience, I decided to invest in getting some software to move files between PCs.

Works on all 3 of my vintage PCs, so until I can setup a proper network between them all, this is going to be my go-to for moving files between them all, with the Win98 PC being the key point between my modern computers and vintage PCs through a US thumb drive. -- I don't have a Compact Flash card reader in any of my current builds right now, so this solution is nice.

Oh yeah - Here's two other pics showing the completed assembly and installation.

I'm glad for that extra bay -- but I need to find a good 3.5: plate to install in the open space on my case's front panel now, 🤣

The FDD is working fine, BTW. I did a test on one of my MS-DOS 6.22 floppies, and it recognized and read files off of it with no issue. 😀