are you sure it's a 1.2mb drive?

Unfortunately I don't know what density the drive is. I tried setting the mobo's BIOS A:\ drive value to 360K (not 1.2M), but this didn't give me any better results - I still cannot read the old "Pool of Radiance" D&D disk, which I'm guessing is not a high density disk.

On the photo, the numbers 1 to 6 have the following jumper information. (xx = jumper cap on)

[1]

DD HR IL IS MM(xx) MS IR IU RI(xx) RD(xx) DC(xx) SR

[2]

TPA 1 3 (2 pins, both open)

[3]

TD (jumper pins have been removed, and are "soldered" on to the PCB)
2
1 xx (jumper pins are on)
0
MX
DS3

[4]

B
A P3 1

[5]

IP (jumper pins have been removed, and are "soldered" on to the PCB)
SG
SB xx
SS
ND

[6]

TPB 9 10 (3 pins, all open)

Does it have a model name you can google to find out if it's a 360k or 1.2mb drive?

imho it's best to find that out first before banging your head bloody against a wall trying to get it to read 1.2mb HD 5.25inch disks

I have found a model name for this Mitsubishi 5.25" drive, and it is: MF504C-310MP

I will google for this model code, and see what I find...

Edit: The following webpage mentions this exact drive model. The person says that it's a 1.2M drive. He says he is testing it on a mobo with a VT82C686B controller. Hmmm. Isn't that what I'm using, with my KT133A chipset board? He says that he is having a few problems with the drive. Perhaps I should change mobo?

http://archive.netbsd.se/?ml=cctech&a=2007-06&m=4409936

Edit 2: BTW, the green "busy light" never lights up, when I try to get the drive to read a disk.

I've made a tiny bit of progress. I decided to attach a 3.5" FDD to the ribbon cable, so that I have both 5.25 and 3.5 drives. Now, I see the green busy light shine on the 5.25 drive. I still can't get it to read any disks, but at least there appears to be some life in it.

Now, I think I need to find out the answer to 2 questions -

1) In the BIOS set up area, do I assign the 5.25 drive to A or B drive?

2) Do I attach the 5.25 drive to the middle plug on the ribbon cable, or the end plug on the ribbon cable? If I also use a 3.5 drive, does it use the plug very close to it's 5.25 neighbour plug, or the other plug further away from it?

The cable I am using has 2 sets of plugs. 1 set (in the middle of the cable) has 3.5 and 5.25 plugs, the other set (at the end of the cable) also has 3.5 and 5.25 plugs.

So far, I've messed around with a few combinations, but all have failed. I cannot get the 5.25 drive to read any disks. Also, every combination I have tried, when I run Windows Explorer, I only ever see either the 3.5 disk drive, or the 5.25 disk drive. Never both.

You could really Google that up..

Here is a diagram of the cabling used, for both FDDs - one 3.5 and one 5.25 drive.

Motherboard---------3.5(unused)---5.25(used)---------twist in cable---3.5(used)---5.25(unused)

Mobo's BIOS settings:

A = 3.5
B = 5.25

Windows 98 cannot "see" both floppy drives at the same time, only A: (never A: and B: ). Instead, at the operating system's boot up prompt choice section, I choose the "command prompt only" option, and at the C:\ prompt, I try to access the 5.25 floppy drive by typing B:\ When I try this, I just get a "General failure" message. The 5.25 drive's green "busy light" shines, and the floppy disk motor starts, but disks cannot be read or accessed. I've tried a couple of disks, one high density and the other I think is not high density.

Hrm, couple things...

The connector before the twist is drive B, and the one after is drive A.

and this link should help you. http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/19 … rch/122818.html

also, clean the heads on that baby =]

Oh yes! 😁 This contraption now works, but only just. It just needed endless retries - I think it needs a clean. Unfortunately, I don't have any cleaner for it. I will have a look on ebay for some. I've never cleaned a FDD before - is it some kind of special disk you put in to the drive slot?

Anyway, back to the good news: I attached this 5.25 FDD to an Epox board, and connected the drive to the very end plug on the ribbon cable, past the twist in the cable. I assigned it to "drive A" in the BIOS. I tried a "normal" 5.25 disk and also a HD 1.2M 5.25 disk. After some fierce grinding sounds and lots of error messages, both disks could be accessed with the A:\dir command. I double checked they both worked OK by copying the contents of these 2 disks to a temporary directory on the HDD.

Please note: the jumpers on the FDD appear to be correct. RoyBatty, it's amazing you managed to track down that jumper info on the net! 😁

http://computers.shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_tr … py&_sacat=58058

😉

Thanks! 😀 I have picked out this one, and put it in my watch list -

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/5-25-Floppy-disk-drive- … =item3c9bdacdfa

they are cheap ($7), 144 already sold and plenty left, international shipping from USA to UK is very good at just $5.

Here is the beast in action. That "thing" in the background is an Epox mobo, with some Noctua fans - one for the CPU, and the other to cool down both the mobo's chipset heatsink (which has a missing fan), and also to cool down the graphics card (because I removed its noisy fan).

Hehe, Google skillz m8 😉

Anyways, some 99% isopropyl alcohol, and some q-tips is all you need to clean a floppy, just make sure you get both heads. They are glass coated so you can't hurt them. Don't use those cleaner disks, they are abrasive, and silly.

I've just spotted where the heads are - inside that "clamp thing" about 2 inches to the right of that prominent looking circular clamp which holds on to the middle of the disk.

I've got some of this handy -

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arcticlean.htm (webpage shows "ArctiClean" product)

How about I use bottle number 2, with a Q-Tip cleaner? It's called "thermal surface purifier". Unfortunately there's no ingredients list on the bottle. I have used it in the past to clean ISA contacts on old soundcards.

Edit: This worked. After cleaning, I noticed there was discolouration on the q-tip. I waited for about 20 mins for the disk heads area to dry, then tried the "normal" and high density disks again. They could both be accessed and copied with zero errors.

[From the pic] Whoa! 6 PCI slots! And I think I can barely make out an ISA slot.(?) 😀

Malik wrote:

[From the pic] Whoa! 6 PCI slots! And I think I can barely make out an ISA slot.(?) 😀

You're right, on both accounts. But I'd gladly trade in a couple of those PCI slots for PCB revision 1.1, instead of 1.0. This is because PCB 1.1 supports Palominos and T-Breds faster than 1800+. (ATM, I'm not sure about XP-M CPUs.)

Edit: I like your new Wing Commander avatar btw. Hehe!

For cleaning magnetic storage device (floppy drive / VCR / audio cassette tape / etc) heads or optical storage device (CD / DVD) lenses, the best thing to use is a cotton swab (Q-Tip) or chamois pad and some isopropyl rubbing alcohol from your local drug store / pharmacy. The higher the percentage of alcohol the better, as you want it to dissolve dirt and then evaporate.

The old cleaning floppies were just rough cloth disks inside of standard floppy jackets, and they came with bottles of isopropyl alcohol that you soak the cloth disk with before inserting it into the drive.

Other thoughts:

- if the floppy light stays on after the computer has been powered on for a few seconds, you probably have the data connector on backwards

- I can't remember how to tell a 1.2MB DSHD 5.25" floppy from a 360KB DSDD 5.25" floppy. I think 360KB disks may often have a protective plastic ring around the spindle hole, and 1.2MB disks *may* have two guide holes (instead of just 1) flanking the central spindle hole (my memory may be faulty on that one, it's been too long since I've worked with 5.25" disks!).

I've just bought some "NOS" 5.25" floppy disks. I think the last time I bought 5.25" disks was in 1986, for my Atari 800XL machine. They were shrink wrapped and "cheap as chips". The circular embossed sticker on the plastic box reads: MD2HD formatted for IBM. They are double sided high density, and preformatted. The case is quite "roomy", and so I can discard some of them (as I don't need all 10), and put my SSI RPG disks in there, for safe keeping.

Some hint:
Don't test new drives with SSI RPG disks or any other disks with data on it. Could be that after these tests the data is gone.

An easy way to find out if the drive is HD or DD is to enable floppy seek in the BIOS and then you simply hear it when the computer boots up. You might put a disk in to get a more prominent sound.

Anyone want some HD 5.25 FDD's? I decided to sell 2 pcs. Throw in some 20 HD floppies too. Just make me an offer. The units are tried and tested, but I cannot guarantee for the disks.
I'll consider some swaps. As I said before, make me an offer.