Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
3 Posts
0
21975
5.25" floppy on Optiplex 745? will this work
I have an optiplex 745 that shows that has a space for a 3.5" drive so I assume the motherboard will work with a floppy drive. If I install a 5.25" floppy drive in the 5.25" slot above, will it work? If so what type of cable do I need to get.
Thanks,
Chris
RoHe
10 Elder
10 Elder
•
43.6K Posts
0
March 27th, 2015 20:00
You didn't say what form factor (eg, tower, desktop...) you have but read the manual about installing a floppy drive. Floppy drive data cables should be standard, and you'll need an available power connection from the power supply.
After it's installed, don't forget to go into BIOS setup to enable the onboard floppy drive controller.
Would an external USB floppy drive be easier and more convenient?
BTW: Why do you even want such a prehistoric drive any way?
chris98574
3 Posts
0
March 27th, 2015 20:00
Its a tower with two 5.25" slots + a 3.5" slow below them. I need the drive because I have a lot of 5.25" floppy drives that I want to see whats on them.
RoHe
10 Elder
10 Elder
•
43.6K Posts
0
March 28th, 2015 19:00
Should be relatively easy to find an internal 5 1/4" floppy drive. Try eBay etc, or ask around. I bet somebody has an old klunker PC in the garage with a 5 1/4" drive that you can explant into your PC.
chris98574
3 Posts
0
March 29th, 2015 17:00
Just looked in the case and even if I got a 5.25" drive, there isn't any way to power it. The only power available is for the 3.5" drive and that supports the smaller plug.
I know there's an adapter to go from the large to small but is there one that goes from Female 3.5 to Male 5.25.
RoHe
10 Elder
10 Elder
•
43.6K Posts
0
March 29th, 2015 20:00
If it only has a connector for a 3.5" drive, you may have a different problem. The onboard floppy controller may not support a 5 1/4" drive...
You may need to look for an external housing for a 5 1/4" drive that can connect via USB.
speedstep
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
47K Posts
1
March 30th, 2015 06:00
It will support a 5.25 inch Floppy in the Optical Drive bay. HOWEVER you will need a StarTech LP4SATAFM12 12" SATA to Molex LP4 Power conversion
Another issue is Windows OS past XP and even XP with Service packs will show issues when trying to format floppies. The issues are a bug in the OS but you wont find this out until you make a bootable MSDOS floppy and try the same disks again. The work around is to make a WIN9X Dos bootable flash drive that has the format command on it.
http://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/305595
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G28N3134
AND a 5.25 inch Floppy cable. Universal one with 5 connectors. And I'm not supporting any ole joes crab shack floppy drives or going into the drive select jumper on the drives.
http://www.amazon.com/CablesOnline-Universal-Floppy-Ribbon-5-25in/dp/B00FZ3IL80