BitFlip wrote on 2024-02-20, 07:22:Cheers, my FDD uses a flat belt type and not square but I will try to find a similar listing with flat belts and see what turns […]
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sp3hybrid wrote on 2024-02-20, 07:13:Hi BitFlip, […]
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Hi BitFlip,
The belts came in an assortment pack of 120 flat belts of different lengths. The Amazon title was
"120Pcs Universal 40-135mm Mix Cassette Tape Machine Square Belt Assorted Repair"
I'm not sure if this is the right belt to use but they had the correct width and worked for me.
On another note, on a lot of my vintage laptops I tend to take the hard drive out and connect it to my Linux Desktop through a USB to IDE adapter. They are cheap and usually come with a 40 pin regular connector together with the molex plug for power and also with a 44 pin laptop adapter. The one I have is a generic one from Amazon. It works in only about half of my drives but when it works it is my preferred method of transferring data to my laptops.
Cheers, my FDD uses a flat belt type and not square but I will try to find a similar listing with flat belts and see what turns up.
I also did the same, pulled the HDD and prepared it on my main "modern" desktop within VMware using a HDD dock which turned out fine.
I do really want to know if I can wire up a more standard 34 pin FDD to the motherboard header though so hopefully someone with a bit more knowhow and experience in the matter will come along soon.
It's good that you're already aware of how to use PCMCIA to transfer files - personally that's my preferred method but sometimes you just do need a floppy drive.
For the T2130 it's also quite integral to the laptop too.
You can use any EME278 or EME279 drive in its place, with the connector at either the top or bottom of the drive but they all need new belts now - I have successfully put an EME279 into one of my T2130CS laptops where I wasn't able to get the original drive working.
Here's the belt if you'd like to print it in TPU or another flexible material, it works in all the EME278 and EME279 drives I've place it in and I printed like 40 of them last time I had the printer set up for it.
65mm diameter, 204mm circumference, 0.4mm thickness, 1.5mm height - Print settings:
- tested with cheap generic red & grey TPU filament
- 0.25mm nozzle
- non-textured print surface
- 0.15mm layer height
- vase mode
EME279TC-204mm circle-Thickpoint4mm-Height1point5mm.zip
Refurbishing the floppy drive requires a tool like IMD / imagedisk for in-depth testing though booting from a Windows 98 boot floppy is my usual 'good-enough' test if no further diagnostics are required.
When testing the floppy drive if it's one with the PCB on top, make sure the PCB is screwed down because the Track 0 sensor is connected with a zebra strip which requires a good physical connection between the PCB and the strip along with some pressure, which is what the aluminium lid adds to.
Replacement drives can be sourced from Toshiba external floppy drive caddies - the rectangular ones with a button on the back corner.
For outright replacing the drive it looks like someone already made an adapter PCB or flex cable which converts 1.25mm to 1mm pitch: https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/26- … github.1237299/
Or you could fit a regular direct-drive floppy since the pinout isn't weird - watch out for connector orientation though, the T21xx series internal floppy pinout is the exact reverse of the standard and the EME278 itself, so the FPC orientation may need to be swapped - I've marked the VCC pins with red pen:
Toshiba-T2130-floppy-vs-EME278.JPG
I think there would be simpler / cheaper ways to connect that up potentially. I have manually wired up a non-standard pinout floppy drive to a regular pinout, 26 wires isn't too bad: Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?
There's also a really good discussion on the requirements to get a Gotek floppy emulator working with a Toshiba laptop - the caddy pictured here is the external version of your FDD: https://torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3615
Some risks to this though sadly - since this thread's time, the Gotek has switched over to using Artery microcontrollers and the SFRM72-DU26 may have a controller that's not up to the job of running FlashFloppy or HxC. This slim type is required for fitting in a laptop since regular size 3.5" drives will not fit. The situation with the Gotek looks like it's got worse for the slim drives, openflops would be something to consider...