First post, by Machine Monarch
- Rank
- Newbie
Hi everyone!
First time posting here and I had to create an account because I'm ecstatic!
A while ago I purchase a Toshiba Satellite Pro 430CDT as I had always wanted one of those thick 90s laptops. It came in quite good condition, the battery even held some charge for upwards of 30 minutes.
The floppy drive that it came with was already broken because the rubber band had dried out. As some of you know, it does feature a CD-ROM drive which it is not possible to boot from.
Earlier I came across this post, Toshiba Satellite Pro 430CDT, which showed that it was possible to replace the floppy with a slim floppy TEAC-drive...
Fastforward half a year or so and I'm at work where we're throwing out these very old Supermicro Super Servers (5013C-M) which have been sitting below a storage shelf collecting dust. I quickly notice that they feature slim-type floppy drives and I decide to salvage one in the off chance that maybe, MAYBE they work!
Unfortunately the drive does not fit in its original case BUT at least the connector seems to be the same... And it WORKS! 😁
I decide to try and update the bios from version 6.30 to 6.50 using the floppy drive. This also works!
As an added bonus, the CD-Drive from the servers is also compatible with this laptop.
I left the sticker with the server name on for added coolness... 😉
Now onto replacing the HDD with Compact Flash. I think I'm going to try and install NetBSD on it due to their low hardware requirements. Maybe I can even get a CMOS battery replacement!