5 1/4 floppy drive

wonder if anyone out there can help me.

I need to get data off some old 5 1/4" floppy disks and archived onto cd. I
have an old floppy drive (CHINON FR-506) that is supposed to be a 1.2Mb
drive.

If I set it up as 1.2Mb in the BIOS, I get the FLOPPY DISK(S) FAIL (40)
error at boot. If I leave it as 360kb, I don't get that error. this makes
me think it's a 360kb.
But if I try to read a 360kb disk I get GENERAL FAILURE READING DRIVE A
errors. I have another 360kb floppy drive that just formatted this floppy.

There are some jumpers on the CHINON 1.2Mb drive that I'm not sure if I need
to fiddle with to get this drive working.

I'm using DOS 6.22, with the floppy drive as the only one on the cable, at
the end slot.

any help greatly appreciated

cheers
Drew

"microsoft" wrote in message
...
wonder if anyone out there can help me.

I need to get data off some old 5 1/4" floppy disks and archived onto cd.
I
have an old floppy drive (CHINON FR-506) that is supposed to be a 1.2Mb
drive.

If I set it up as 1.2Mb in the BIOS, I get the FLOPPY DISK(S) FAIL (40)
error at boot. If I leave it as 360kb, I don't get that error. this
makes
me think it's a 360kb.

But if I try to read a 360kb disk I get GENERAL FAILURE READING DRIVE A
errors. I have another 360kb floppy drive that just formatted this
floppy.

There are some jumpers on the CHINON 1.2Mb drive that I'm not sure if I
need
to fiddle with to get this drive working.

I'm using DOS 6.22, with the floppy drive as the only one on the cable, at
the end slot.

There should be a twist in the cable before the last plug. This would make
the drive A:.

That drive is listed as a 1.2meg drive, so I don't think that this is what
is causing the issue.

Set the BIOS to do the Floppy Seek and then check to see if the drive lights
up and spins during boot. If it doesn't do both then it may be set to be the
B: drive for a system that doesn't have a flip in the cable - try the middle
connector.

Also, the drive MAY need terminating resistors on it... you could hook to
the middle of the cable and add another drive to the end of the cable.
(might be wrong here).

thanks for the feedback Noozer. This one has me stumped.

I saw on the net that this model was listed as a 1.2Mb, but I'm dubious. If
I set it to 1.2Mb in the BIOS, I get the floppy disks fail error. If I set
it to 360kb it's fine.
The BIOS is set to Floppy Seek.
I try the drive in the middle of the cable and it doesn't respond. I try it
at the end, after the twist, and the drive responds.
If I set the drive to 360kb in the BIOS (and get no floppy disk errors on
boot), and put a 360kb floppy disk in and try to format it to 360kb, I get
the error "invalid media or Track 0 bad - disk unusable" (This is the very
same disk that I formatted with my other old 360kb floppy drive - so I'm
confident it's not a problem with the disk)

If I set it to 1.2Mb in the BIOS, I get the "floppy disk(s) fail (40)" error
at boot. If I then F1 past this error, and try to format the 360kb disk, it
works!

Everything I've done points to this being a 360kb drive, but I cannot find
any references on the net that confirm this. I've seen a few references to
this model on eBay and other such auction sites as being a 1.2Mb. I'm
thinking perhaps there's something I should be playing with on the jumper
pins that toggles it between 360/1.2 modes, but i can't find any reference
to these jumper settings either.

The switches a
MS2 open
D-R closed
MS1 closed
IU open
DS3 open
DS2 open
DS1 closed
DS0 open
TM closed (terminator??)

I've tried with DS0 closed, then DS1, DS2 and DS3. The drive only responds
when DS1 is closed. I assume TM is the terminator, and I have no idea as to
the other switches.

As before, any assistance/feedback is greatly appreciated.

Drew



"Noozer" wrote in message
news:NmBjc.272872$Pk3.131832@pd7tw1no...

"microsoft" wrote in message
...
wonder if anyone out there can help me.

I need to get data off some old 5 1/4" floppy disks and archived onto
cd.
I
have an old floppy drive (CHINON FR-506) that is supposed to be a 1.2Mb
drive.

If I set it up as 1.2Mb in the BIOS, I get the FLOPPY DISK(S) FAIL (40)
error at boot. If I leave it as 360kb, I don't get that error. this
makes
me think it's a 360kb.

But if I try to read a 360kb disk I get GENERAL FAILURE READING DRIVE A
errors. I have another 360kb floppy drive that just formatted this
floppy.

There are some jumpers on the CHINON 1.2Mb drive that I'm not sure if I
need
to fiddle with to get this drive working.

I'm using DOS 6.22, with the floppy drive as the only one on the cable,
at
the end slot.

There should be a twist in the cable before the last plug. This would make
the drive A:.

That drive is listed as a 1.2meg drive, so I don't think that this is what
is causing the issue.

Set the BIOS to do the Floppy Seek and then check to see if the drive
lights
up and spins during boot. If it doesn't do both then it may be set to be
the
B: drive for a system that doesn't have a flip in the cable - try the
middle
connector.

Also, the drive MAY need terminating resistors on it... you could hook to
the middle of the cable and add another drive to the end of the cable.
(might be wrong here).

microsoft wrote:

wonder if anyone out there can help me.

I need to get data off some old 5 1/4" floppy disks and archived onto cd. I
have an old floppy drive (CHINON FR-506) that is supposed to be a 1.2Mb
drive.

If I set it up as 1.2Mb in the BIOS, I get the FLOPPY DISK(S) FAIL (40)
error at boot. If I leave it as 360kb, I don't get that error. this makes
me think it's a 360kb.
But if I try to read a 360kb disk I get GENERAL FAILURE READING DRIVE A
errors. I have another 360kb floppy drive that just formatted this floppy.

There are some jumpers on the CHINON 1.2Mb drive that I'm not sure if I need
to fiddle with to get this drive working.

I'm using DOS 6.22, with the floppy drive as the only one on the cable, at
the end slot.

any help greatly appreciated

cheers
Drew


Have a chat to your local computer nerd. If s/he's anything like me,
they will have a couple of spares lying around... I'm keeping them for
the stepping motors.

--
-Luke-
If cars had advanced at the same rate as Micr0$oft technology, they'd be
flying by now.
But who wants a car that crashes 8 times a day?
Registered Linux User #345134

I'm keeping them for the stepping motors.

A lot of guys I know (techies) do this..... what kind of projects do you use
those on?

Hank

Hank wrote:

I'm keeping them for the stepping motors.


A lot of guys I know (techies) do this..... what kind of projects do you use
those on?

Hank



You can get stepping motor controllers at your local electronics store.
They are very accurate, so you can use them in many different types of
projects. Working models of things, automation projects, generally
stupid/trivial/pointless things with a huge cool-factor

--
-Luke-
If cars had advanced at the same rate as Micr0$oft technology, they'd be
flying by now.
But who wants a car that crashes 8 times a day?
Registered Linux User #345134

"microsoft" wrote in message ...

I need to get data off some old 5 1/4" floppy disks and
archived onto cd. I have an old floppy drive (CHINON FR-506)
that is supposed to be a 1.2Mb drive.

If I set it up as 1.2Mb in the BIOS, I get the FLOPPY DISK(S)
FAIL (40) error at boot. If I leave it as 360kb, I don't get
that error. this makes me think it's a 360kb.
But if I try to read a 360kb disk I get GENERAL FAILURE READING
DRIVE A errors. I have another 360kb floppy drive that just
formatted this floppy.

There are some jumpers on the CHINON 1.2Mb drive that I'm not
sure if I need to fiddle with to get this drive working.

I'm using DOS 6.22, with the floppy drive as the only one on
the cable, at the end slot.

I'm rather sure that your drive is a 1.2M.

If the drive doesn't work even without a floppy in it:

Look for cable or drive selection problems. If the drive light stays
on all the time, then the data cable is plugged in backwards, but if
it turns on and off, then the drive may be plugged into the wrong
connector, or its drive selection jumper is set wrong. The IBM PC
standard calls for configuring all floppy drives as the 2nd one and
using twists in the cable to differentiate between A: and B:, and it's
possible that your 1.2M's drive select jumper needs to be changed.
Look for jumpers labelled DS0, DS1, DS2 or D0, D1, D2. If this jumper
was correct, then the drive may not be plugged into the correct
connector; it needs to go into the one just after the FIRST twist in
the cable, and that may be the socket at the end or the one in the
middle.

If the drive light turns on and off and you can hear the heads move:

Many 5.25" drives used a removable terminator resistor pack in a
10-pin or 14-pin socket, and one of the drives on a cable requires
termination or else the signals will be dirty. Plugging a 3.5" floppy
drive to the unused connector and the power connector should provide
necessary termination, but if not try finding a terminator pack or
connecting an approximately 1,000 ohm resistor between each signal
line and +5V (probably one of the pins at the end or a corner of the
socket). The terminator pack usually consists of pairs of 220 and 330
ohm resistors, and never have more than one such pack on any cable or
you'll overload the signals. Newer drives, especially those with
terminator packs permanently soldered in, use 1,000-ohm terminator
packs, and it's OK to have more than one of these per cable.

1.2M drives can work in high density (1.2M) and low density (360K)
modes, selectable by a high/low DENSITY signal on pin 2. But this
signal isn't used with 3.5" drives, except very old ones, and about
every floppy controller made in the past 10 years doesn't generate the
DENSITY signal when accessing a 3.5" drive. It's possible that your
floppy controller doesn't generate this signal even for 1.2M drives,
in which case the only solution I can think of is to cover pin 2 on
the drive with Scotch tape. Another possibility is that your 1.2M
drive has its DENSITY signal set for opposite polarity than normal,
but there may be a drive jumper to change this.

Another troublesome signal is on pin 34. With 3.5" drives it serves
as Disk_Changed (DC) status, but with 5.25" drives its function
varies. It may be unused, always on, or returns READY status (RY or
RDY) indicating that the drive has been selected and a disk is
spinning in it. If you can't set a jumper to make pin 34 give
Disk_Changed status, then cover it with Scotch tape
and use CTRL-C when you change disks, or edit CONFIG.SYS to add a
DRIVPARM line for the drive and leave out its "/C" parameter (use of
this parameter causes Disk_Changed to be ignored).

Are you using the proper disks? 1.2M disks usually work at 360K, but
360K disks never work reliably at 1.2M. 1.2M disks normally have no
reinforcement ring around the large center hole, but there are
exceptions, and a better way to distinguish disks is by looking
through the oval read/write hole and shining a strong light from the
opposite side. Real 1.2M disks are transparent red, as are 1.44M
disks, while 360K and 720K disks are opaque.