Does these support non standard format? Like DMF, 2M and others?

As for the speed, it depend how you access it. From my experience, it's way slower than normal floppy drives if you access a floppy full of small files, while being way faster for a floppy with a few large file that you access sequentially.
We use to have them at school in the early 00's and it's the reason I did prefer the normal floppy drives.

Great ! Can you test it with WinImage and try to write any floppy image you might have, on the Windows 10 computer ?

The problem with LS120 is that while you can boot from it if your BIOS supports it, you can't access it as a drive from DOS without a driver... It's best to have both a floppy and an LS120.

Good info but am more interested in knowing if it can write a proper floppy image from Win 10 w/o that "drive in use" type error that can happen with USB floppy drives when trying to write an image....

mockingbird wrote on 2023-10-19, 02:47:

The problem with LS120 is that while you can boot from it if your BIOS supports it, you can't access it as a drive from DOS without a driver... It's best to have both a floppy and an LS120.

This depends on the BIOS/CSM support. You may connect it to an IDE-to-USB adapter. You may be able to boot from it then.

provide me an image and i try to writhe directly, and the software too if it’s free thanks.

Rav wrote on 2023-10-19, 01:29:

Does these support non standard format? Like DMF, 2M and others?

As for the speed, it depend how you access it. From my experience, it's way slower than normal floppy drives if you access a floppy full of small files, while being way faster for a floppy with a few large file that you access sequentially.
We use to have them at school in the early 00's and it's the reason I did prefer the normal floppy drives.

i have just try to copy the dos floppy number 4 and take 5 seconds to copy all.

Winimage is free for a 30 day trial: https://www.winimage.com/download.htm
Here is one Winimage .IMG file: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=643
there are many more but good for a test...

Disruptor wrote on 2023-10-19, 04:20:

mockingbird wrote on 2023-10-19, 02:47:

The problem with LS120 is that while you can boot from it if your BIOS supports it, you can't access it as a drive from DOS without a driver... It's best to have both a floppy and an LS120.

This depends on the BIOS/CSM support. You may connect it to an IDE-to-USB adapter. You may be able to boot from it then.

I'm fairly sure the AM2+ board I've got one on, without a floppy interface, with a single PATA channel, supports it as a floppy drive boot, not only superdrive boot, so in consequence, supported as a floppy, it is accessible as drive A from DOS.

rawrite32 also work, and it free so no need to get sketchy

https://www.netbsd.org/~martin/rawrite32/download.html

mockingbird wrote on 2023-10-19, 02:47:

The problem with LS120 is that while you can boot from it if your BIOS supports it, you can't access it as a drive from DOS without a driver... It's best to have both a floppy and an LS120.

The real problem with LS120 is the drives are today un-cleanable. Regular cleaning disks will destroy the heads, and the special LS-120 cleaning disks haven't been manufactured in some 20 years. So today a dirty LS-120 drive is effectively a dead LS-120 drive.

Which is a real shame as the drives are great at imaging marginal disks that a regular floppy drive may struggle to read.

I've manually cleaned the head on a slim line one after a mouldy floppy disk rubbed against the head and deposited some material - that was one scary operation, used some small foam type ESD cotton bud things that don't leave any fibers behind along with some IPA. From what I recall it even still works with LS120 disks.
Actual regular cleaning disks will destroy the drive though 😀 I think it states that pretty clearly in the manual too.

Agreed that they're the best way to image marginal disks, that's usually what it's used for as well as being much faster than a regular floppy in Windows 10 and with winimage (reads & writes images). In my case I use it as an external drive since my PC is ITX and has no drive bays - the HP USB 2.0 Multibay combined with an HP/compaq LS-120 caddy and external 5v power source. It shows up as Floppy drive B: and a regular USB floppy will show up as drive A:

Whether the drive works in DOS itself depends on the BIOS - a while back I was playing with some LS120 disks on an Advantech PCA-6145 single board 486 which has a bios from around 1998. That one definitely can boot from an LS-120 disk and then access it as drive A in DOS. I was even able to get doom to run from an LS120 on the fastest of my LS120 drives.

davidrg wrote on 2023-10-20, 07:35:

Which is a real shame as the drives are great at imaging marginal disks that a regular floppy drive may struggle to read.

I find the best way to bring back marginal disks is with an electromagnetic tape eraser. A couple of drags on both sides and the disk is ready to format.

...but yes, I don't see why you can't just manually clean them... Gently lift the head and wipe the top and bottom heads with care.

davidrg wrote on 2023-10-20, 07:35:

mockingbird wrote on 2023-10-19, 02:47:

The problem with LS120 is that while you can boot from it if your BIOS supports it, you can't access it as a drive from DOS without a driver... It's best to have both a floppy and an LS120.

The real problem with LS120 is the drives are today un-cleanable. Regular cleaning disks will destroy the heads, and the special LS-120 cleaning disks haven't been manufactured in some 20 years. So today a dirty LS-120 drive is effectively a dead LS-120 drive.

Which is a real shame as the drives are great at imaging marginal disks that a regular floppy drive may struggle to read.

On the LS120 I just want to only use disks that have been first, tested and formatted on other 1.44mb drives. No 120mb disk having no other drives and using zip250 between retropc and win10

mockingbird wrote on 2023-10-19, 02:47:

The problem with LS120 is that while you can boot from it if your BIOS supports it, you can't access it as a drive from DOS without a driver... It's best to have both a floppy and an LS120.

I remember working with some Compaq deskpro computers at work in the late pentium/ early pentium II era that had BIOS that would let the ls120 work as A: in DOS. I dont have any today though.

Anyone know which option roms are available that let you use an LS120 drive in DOS? Might be cool to make a list of them.

I see this one:
https://web.archive.org/web/19970416030553/ht … PYMAX-Main.html

Many of my newer systems (Core 2 and newer from my experience) assume the LS-120 is the A: drive in the absence of a connected floppy drive. If I have a single floppy drive connected, the BIOS assigns B: to the LS-120.

This only works for 1.44MB disks as I understand it (I've never had any 120MB disks, though). I think you would need the DOS drivers for larger disks. Even then, you could use the SUBST command to assign it to the A: drive in DOS.

I don't know how far back that BIOS feature goes. I messed around with LS-120 for the first time in the Core 2 era.

douglar wrote on 2024-02-11, 04:16:

I remember working with some Compaq deskpro computers at work in the late pentium/ early pentium II era that had BIOS that would […]
Show full quote

I remember working with some Compaq deskpro computers at work in the late pentium/ early pentium II era that had BIOS that would let the ls120 work as A: in DOS. I dont have any today though.

Anyone know which option roms are available that let you use an LS120 drive in DOS? Might be cool to make a list of them.

I see this one:
https://web.archive.org/web/19970416030553/ht … PYMAX-Main.html

fosterwj03 wrote on 2024-02-11, 14:18:

Many of my newer systems (Core 2 and newer from my experience) assume the LS-120 is the A: drive in the absence of a connected floppy drive. If I have a single floppy drive connected, the BIOS assigns B: to the LS-120.

This only works for 1.44MB disks as I understand it (I've never had any 120MB disks, though). I think you would need the DOS drivers for larger disks. Even then, you could use the SUBST command to assign it to the A: drive in DOS.

I don't know how far back that BIOS feature goes. I messed around with LS-120 for the first time in the Core 2 era.

Again, the overwhelming majority of newer BIOS from that era have an option for LS120 as a boot drive... That's all nice and fine. You boot from the dirve, it shows up as drive A, and everything's hunkydory... The problem is when you are in DOS and you got into DOS from the HDD or from a regular drive, and you want to access the LS120 -- you need a driver. Because LS120 is an emulated device on the IDE, it does not automatically work like a floppy drive without a driver.

mockingbird wrote on 2024-02-11, 15:42:

douglar wrote on 2024-02-11, 04:16:

I remember working with some Compaq deskpro computers at work in the late pentium/ early pentium II era that had BIOS that would […]
Show full quote

I remember working with some Compaq deskpro computers at work in the late pentium/ early pentium II era that had BIOS that would let the ls120 work as A: in DOS. I dont have any today though.

Anyone know which option roms are available that let you use an LS120 drive in DOS? Might be cool to make a list of them.

I see this one:
https://web.archive.org/web/19970416030553/ht … PYMAX-Main.html

fosterwj03 wrote on 2024-02-11, 14:18:

Many of my newer systems (Core 2 and newer from my experience) assume the LS-120 is the A: drive in the absence of a connected floppy drive. If I have a single floppy drive connected, the BIOS assigns B: to the LS-120.

This only works for 1.44MB disks as I understand it (I've never had any 120MB disks, though). I think you would need the DOS drivers for larger disks. Even then, you could use the SUBST command to assign it to the A: drive in DOS.

I don't know how far back that BIOS feature goes. I messed around with LS-120 for the first time in the Core 2 era.

Again, the overwhelming majority of newer BIOS from that era have an option for LS120 as a boot drive... That's all nice and fine. You boot from the dirve, it shows up as drive A, and everything's hunkydory... The problem is when you are in DOS and you got into DOS from the HDD or from a regular drive, and you want to access the LS120 -- you need a driver. Because LS120 is an emulated device on the IDE, it does not automatically work like a floppy drive without a driver.

This isn't true in the case I described above. If the computer boots DOS off of another drive (either the hard drive, conventional floppy drive, or even a CD), the BIOS on my newer boards assigns a floppy drive letter to the LS-120 without DOS loading LS-120 specific drivers. It will read 1.44MB disks as though it's a conventional floppy in DOS (just much faster).

fosterwj03 wrote on 2024-02-17, 01:52:

If the computer boots DOS off of another drive (either the hard drive, conventional floppy drive, or even a CD), the BIOS on my newer boards assigns a floppy drive letter to the LS-120 without DOS loading LS-120 specific drivers. It will read 1.44MB disks as though it's a conventional floppy in DOS (just much faster).

Gotcha. Its better than nothing but not ideal.

I got a promise FloppyMAX bios today. I will try it out to see if it does any better.