PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware

[John Boffemmyer IV]

Or you can use an external USB to floppy interface enclosure. A few 
on the list have commented on their use and types. In theory, you 
could have many, many drives this way.
-John Boffemmyer IV

At 05:25 PM 10/8/2005, you wrote:

>On Sat, 8 Oct 2005 03:25:49 -0500 (CDT), cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote:
> > Message: 22
> > Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 21:51:09 -0700
> > From: jim stephens <james.w.stephens at gmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: TEAC FD-55GFR = Quad Density?
> > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
> >       <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> > Message-ID:
> >       <ae0bc2000510072151o541c0ad3u8dbc114f37216beb at mail.gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> >
> > <snip>
> > >
> > >
> > > <snip>
> > > Actually, I am still slowly getting over my long painful struggle to get
> > > two floppy drives enabled on a Dell Optiplex system. There's support
> > > for a second floppy in the BIOS but it appears the hardware support is
> > > entirely missing. I had to just do away with the 3-1/2" disk to get a
> > > 5-1/4" disk installed in one of my (many, since I get them for < $5 all
> > > kitted out with Pentium III processors) beloved (!!??!!) Optiplex boxes.
> > > Was there THAT much savings in not including hardware support for two
> > > floppies, DELL? Why not patch settings for the second drive out of the
> > > BIOS so we don't pound our heads against the wall trying??
> > >
> > > I'm curious about the comment about second drive support missing. I
> > am curious why the addition of a proper multiheaded cable doesnt
> > fix this?
> >
> > they actually dont drive the drive select in the cable?
>
>I built a new machine around an EPoX 9NPA nForce 4 motherboard and found
>out to my surprise that it was only capable of running one floppy drive.
>In my case the BIOS provides no way to enable a second drive, so at
>least it's consistent.  Having a BIOS that lets you put in settings for
>a second drive when the hardware doesn't support it would really be a
>screwup.
>
>EPoX makes schematics available, so I downloaded one and studied it to
>try to confirm whether there really was no way to get a second drive to
>work.  It turns out the super-IO chip they use to run the floppies and
>several other system functions (fan control, temperature sensors, serial
>and parallel ports, etc.) has only a limited number of pins.  Several
>have multiple functions, and the motherboard designer has to select
>which function he wants to use for each pin and do without the others.
>EPoX chose to use the pins that could have driven the second floppy's
>motor-on and drive select for other functions (I forget what offhand).
>So those pins are no-connects on the floppy cable.
>
>As a small compensation, it's possible to reconfigure the parallel port
>as an external floppy connector.  If you do that, you can put two drives
>on it.  (Whoopee.)
>
>This all is not a huge deal for me since I can pop a Catweasel card into
>the machine if I really want more floppies in it, but it's a bit annoying.
>
>--
>Tim Mann  tim at tim-mann.org  http://tim-mann.org/
>
>
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