You didn't mention if you tried the floppy drive in another pc and therefore if it's surely working

Nemo1985 wrote on 2023-04-20, 20:48:

You didn't mention if you tried the floppy drive in another pc and therefore if it's surely working

I tried it in the same PC conected as drive A: and it works, but not if conected as drive B:

That's a step ahead. The cable are you using is twisted? I vaguely remember that there could have been issue with 2 flopy drive if the cable isn't twisted one should have a jumper to give it a different id.

Did you disable onboard FDD controller?
Your motherboard is one of those rebranded Intel boards which tend to have limitations deliberately implemented by software (like crappy BIOSes).

Vagabund2k wrote on 2023-04-20, 20:17:

My problem is that I can't get the 5.25" floppy drive to work. After researching for a while, I found out that the controller on my board only supports one floppy drive.

I guess that means that the bios only has one entry to set the drive type for the floppy drive and you are thus unable to set any drive type for the second drive.
Which means the bios is unaware of the attached second floppy drive and thus Dos won't know about it either and windows tends to follow dos on these things.

I think your best bet is to use DRIVPARM .... or DEVICE=DRIVER.SYS .... lines in the CONFIG.SYS file

something like
DRIVPARM=/D:1 /C /F:1
assuming you have a 1.2MB 5"1/4 drive
use /F:0 if it's only a 360K drive.

So I purchased the AHA-1542CF because I should be able to control both drives through it. Unfortunately, this didn't help and th […]
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So I purchased the AHA-1542CF because I should be able to control both drives through it. Unfortunately, this didn't help and the symptoms are still the same:

Symptoms / Initial situation:

- The drive is not displayed under Win98SE, only the 3.5" drive (A:)
- When I try to read from drive A: under DOS, it reads from A: (works)
- When I try to read from drive B: under DOS, it also reads from A:
- When I insert a diskette into the 5.25" drive, the motor is audible
- When I connect the 5.25" drive as drive A:, it works (after the twisted part of the cable)
- The floppy controller on the motherboard is disabled
- Both drives are connected to the AHA-1542CF via 1 Cable which supports 3 Drives

What I haven't tested yet is whether the configuration 3.5" = B: & 5.25" = A: works. - (i doubt it)
I'll try that tomorrow. Until then, do you have any other tips for me?

I had a similar issue in the past.
It turned out to be an electrical issue, the on-board controller apparently was "too weak" for the 5,25" drive I had. The controller couldn't properly drive it, so to say.
Using a floppy controller on an 16-Bit ISA multi-i/o card helped. No extra software required (on-board FDC disabled).

Anyway, these are just my two cents. Maybe using another 5,25"drive or FD controller helps.
It doesn't mean that either component is defective, maybe they just don't like each others.🤷‍♂️

It got even stranger. I conected one drive to the Mainboard and one Drive to the SCSI Controller. In Windows 98, only one drive shows up (3,5"). If i try to read from it, both drives start reading for a while till an error shows up, the disk could not be read. If only one of the Drives is conected, they read just fine. There is no slave/master jumper on either drive. Mysterious, but I'll keep trying.

Only the older 3.5 drives can have a jumper. What is the model of 5.25 drive?
Can you take some pictures? I hardly believe it has no jumpers

Vagabund2k wrote on 2023-04-21, 19:41:

It got even stranger. I conected one drive to the Mainboard and one Drive to the SCSI Controller. In Windows 98, only one drive shows up (3,5"). If i try to read from it, both drives start reading for a while till an error shows up, the disk could not be read. If only one of the Drives is conected, they read just fine. There is no slave/master jumper on either drive. Mysterious, but I'll keep trying.

So you have both mainboard & scsi floppy controller enabled as primary floppy controller in this scenario ? Why would you do that ?

How many floppy drives can you set up in the bios ? one or two.

Nemo1985 wrote on 2023-04-21, 19:46:

Only the older 3.5 drives can have a jumper. What is the model of 5.25 drive?
Can you take some pictures? I hardly believe it has no jumpers

The 5.25 drive is a MITSUMI D509V3. And you're right, it has jumpers. I mistakenly thought they were responsible for settings other than Slave/Master. I did some further research and came across this post:

MITSUMI D509V3 JUMPER SETTINGS:

DS0__[OO]O
DS2__OOO
MS___[OO]O
RDY__[OO]O
LD___O[OO]
2S___OOO

DS0 - A Drive on a twisted cable!
DS2 - B Drive?
MS -
RDY -
LD - [OO]O DD/360k mode - O[OO] HD/1.2mb mode
S2 –

That's how the drive was previously set up. I've now reconnected both drives via the SCSI adapter (one cable). The motherboard floppy controller is disabled. The 3.5" drive is after the twisted cable (A:). The jumpers on the 5.25 drive are set to:

DS0__OOO
DS2__[OO]O
MS___[OO]O
RDY__[OO]O
LD___O[OO]
2S___OOO

As far as I understand, the 5.25 inch drive is therefore configured as drive B:, but as soon as I boot up, both drive LEDs stay on constantly. In Windows 98 SE, only A: is displayed. When I try to read from it, I immediately get an error message.
I probably connected some cable the wrong way around. I'll try again tomorrow. My first personal computer was a Pentium I with Win 95, and this is now my first "retro build", so I'm still a bit inexperienced with hardware from that era (5.25).

That's a good piece of information.
Here is what I would do: If your cable is twisted it can be used with id0, otherwise it needs the id2.
You should also check to connect one of the 2 floppy drives need to be connected after the twist if they are both connected before the twist fix it (or again the 5.25 needs to be id2).
That's from physical side of stuff.
About the bios limitations, as other vogonians suggested if your integrated floppy controller supports just 1 floppy drive then you have to use the adaptec one. I'm not sure you need to disable the integrated but if your bios (or jumper) has the option, disable it. Then I suppose you will need to use the adaptec bios to set both floppy drives but i'm unsure about it since I searched for the scsi card you have for long time I have never been able to find one for a reasonable price.

EDIT: just saw that now: "- When I connect the 5.25" drive as drive A:, it works (after the twisted part of the cable)", my bad, deleting my now useless message.

The cable is twisted. In the picture down below, you can see how I connected it. As far as I understand, the 5.25 drive is configured on ID2:

DS0__OOO
DS2__[OO]O
MS___[OO]O
RDY__[OO]O
LD___O[OO]
2S___OOO

The floppy controller on the motherboard is disabled via BIOS, and both drives are connected to the SCSI card via one cable. During the last tests, I also disabled the BIOS of the SCSI card because it was causing delays during boot-up. Tomorrow, I'll try turning it back on in the hope that it will solve the issue. Thank you for every advice in this case 😊.

Vagabund2k wrote:

- Both drives are connected to the AHA-1542CF via 1 Cable which supports 3 Drives

The cable having 3 connectors doesn't mean it supports 3 drives. There are cables with even 4 connectors. The idea is you have both forms of connection (5.25" & 3.5") at each side of the twist so you can choose what is drive A and what is drive B without restriction.

There is nothing special in your case. Just have your drives at their initial/factory jumpers and you're good.

Look here for your drive jumpers:
https://www.embeddedsw.net/EMUFDD_MITSUMI_Jumpers.html

Just ensure you use DS1, not DS0, not DS2, not DS3. Just DS1, and stop playing with the drive's jumpers.

With this, you eliminate that as source of errors. Next thing to eliminate, is direction of connection. Particularly the 3.5" drive..

Connect the terminal end of the ribbon cable to the 3.5" drive. Mind the key! The red marked side of the cable MUST match pin 1 on the 3.5". Pin 1 is usually marked on the drive's PCB if you look carefully.

If you get this right, you should be able to operate the 3.5" successfully in your system.

This leaves the last step, the 5.25" drive, which now must be connected to the connector _before_ the twist.. I trust there should be no doubt as to whether this connector works straight or flipped around, as it is usually hard-keyed 🙂
If this is done right, you should be able to still at least operate the 3.5" drive. And it should work in isolation without causing the 5.25" to activate at all. If you see them working at the same time, or are always lit since machine power on, then I'm afraid you messed up one of the steps above.

Finally, you're now left with BIOS/IO Card setup. If BIOS doesn't support 2 floppies just disable the on-board FDC (option in BIOS setup). But I believe you still need to choose 3.5" for your A: drive in the BIOS. Obviously use the connector on the controller card, not the motherboard.

If BIOS doesn't expose option to choose what is B: drive or it simply doesn't function correctly, then DRIVPARM is your only choice to enable it., and that's totally fine for a drive B:

IF you want to change drive assignments, just swap the connection to each drive, moving one before the twist to after the twist. This is how drive letters are assigned by default. Then make sure BIOS is updated to match the drive type (e.g. drive A: is 5.25" 1.2MB instead of 3.5" 1.44MB). Resist the urge to play with jumpers. PC drives do not need jumper tweaks in general.

wbahnassi wrote on 2023-04-22, 07:45:

The cable having 3 connectors doesn't mean it supports 3 drives. There are cables with even 4 connectors. The idea is you have b […]
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Vagabund2k wrote:

- Both drives are connected to the AHA-1542CF via 1 Cable which supports 3 Drives

The cable having 3 connectors doesn't mean it supports 3 drives. There are cables with even 4 connectors. The idea is you have both forms of connection (5.25" & 3.5") at each side of the twist so you can choose what is drive A and what is drive B without restriction.

There is nothing special in your case. Just have your drives at their initial/factory jumpers and you're good.

Look here for your drive jumpers:
https://www.embeddedsw.net/EMUFDD_MITSUMI_Jumpers.html

Just ensure you use DS1, not DS0, not DS2, not DS3. Just DS1, and stop playing with the drive's jumpers.

With this, you eliminate that as source of errors. Next thing to eliminate, is direction of connection. Particularly the 3.5" drive..

Connect the terminal end of the ribbon cable to the 3.5" drive. Mind the key! The red marked side of the cable MUST match pin 1 on the 3.5". Pin 1 is usually marked on the drive's PCB if you look carefully.

If you get this right, you should be able to operate the 3.5" successfully in your system.

This leaves the last step, the 5.25" drive, which now must be connected to the connector _before_ the twist.. I trust there should be no doubt as to whether this connector works straight or flipped around, as it is usually hard-keyed 🙂
If this is done right, you should be able to still at least operate the 3.5" drive. And it should work in isolation without causing the 5.25" to activate at all. If you see them working at the same time, or are always lit since machine power on, then I'm afraid you messed up one of the steps above.

Finally, you're now left with BIOS/IO Card setup. If BIOS doesn't support 2 floppies just disable the on-board FDC (option in BIOS setup). But I believe you still need to choose 3.5" for your A: drive in the BIOS. Obviously use the connector on the controller card, not the motherboard.

If BIOS doesn't expose option to choose what is B: drive or it simply doesn't function correctly, then DRIVPARM is your only choice to enable it., and that's totally fine for a drive B:

IF you want to change drive assignments, just swap the connection to each drive, moving one before the twist to after the twist. This is how drive letters are assigned by default. Then make sure BIOS is updated to match the drive type (e.g. drive A: is 5.25" 1.2MB instead of 3.5" 1.44MB). Resist the urge to play with jumpers. PC drives do not need jumper tweaks in general.

I think i tried everything now. Summary of the last run:

a) i reset the 5,25" Jumpers to default as descripted on https://www.embeddedsw.net/EMUFDD_MITSUMI_Jumpers.html

b) i connected the 3,5" Drive as Drive A: (behind the twisted part of the Cable) and made sure it worked (it did)

c) i connected the 5,25 Drive as Drive B: (before the twisted part of the Cable) i cant connect it wrong because it is hard-keyed

d) Both Drives are now connected to the SCSI Card

f) 3.5" for A: drive is selected in the BIOS / Floppy Controller on the Mainboard is disabled

g) Testrun, drive A: (3,5") is shown and works fine but not drive B: (5,25")
It dont shows up in windows and in cmd, if i try to read from B:, it instead reads from A:

h) i added the parameters
DRIVPARM=/D:0 /C /F:7
DRIVPARM=/D:1 /C /F:1
to my config.sys

reboot - same Problem. No drive B: shown.

i) If i switch the connections between the drives, B: works, A: does not.

j) Bios config of the SCSI Card seems fine.

I would be surprised but, I'm starting to think the Floppy cable could be the problem.
I will try to switch the SCSI Card to the other ISA Slot. If this does not work, i will try to update the BIOS of the SCSI Card. If this does not work, i will buy a new Floppy Cable. If this does not work, i will surrender.

before you switch stuff around and buy new stuff.

Can you run checkit or msd or norton sysinfo or some other program that would indicate which floppy drives are seen by the system and report that info back to us. if possible by screenshot/photo.
and leave the drivparm entries in the config sys for this info.

weedeewee wrote on 2023-04-22, 21:24:

before you switch stuff around and buy new stuff.

Can you run checkit or msd or norton sysinfo or some other program that would indicate which floppy drives are seen by the system and report that info back to us. if possible by screenshot/photo.
and leave the drivparm entries in the config sys for this info.

Attached are some Schreenshots of:

- Adaptec aha-1542cf SCSI Card Bios
- Mainboard BIOS
- MS Diag Tool
- Checkit (German Version)

Unfortunately, neither MSD nor Checkit did detect the 5,25" Drive. 🙁

Here is the rest of the screenshots. Any more idea?

Yes I have an idea. I was hoping the drivparm would fix it but that didn't seem to do the trick.
Unfortunately, while I know it's possible, I can't recall the specifics of how to do it.

It involves editing a few memory locations using debug to trick dos into seeing the second drive, since your bios only sets up one drive.

I'm fairly certain the info can be found on this forum, somewhere. Though finding it quickly might be wishful thinking.

maybe mkarcher or rasz_pl or one of the others that seem to have more intimate knowledge of these matters can chime in on this.
It involves changing the amount of floppy drives that are recognized by the system from one to two, and then setting the information for the second drive to match the specs of the physical drive.
Using debug
looking at two bytes on memory location 0000:0410 and adding 40h to it (0040 or 4000 ? )
and then... ?

on the other hand. Try using driver.sys
as in
DEVICE=<location of>\DRIVER.SYS /D:1 /F:1