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Support for 5.25" 5 1/4 floppy drive on Dell GX260 desktop
OK ... I REALLY understand that I have gone to the prehistoric age of geek here...
but I'm trying to help a friend recover data from some very old 5 1/4" floppy drives.
I have a Dell GX260 desktop with what (I think) is latest BIOS - A09
I have disconnected the OEM 34-pin floppy cable from the motherboard to the built-in 1.44" 3.5" floppy
and have attached a 34-pin ribbon cable that will mate an 5 1/4" drive to the mother board.
And also route the 4-pin power connector to the 5 1/4" drive ...
On boot up the 5 1/4 spins, but the BIOS will only allow selection of NO floppy or 3.5" - 1.44 disk
Q: Are there any tricks I can use to allow the 5 1/4" floppy to be recognized?
thanks!
Jim
redxps630
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December 29th, 2021 10:00
I doubt any bios version supports 5.25 in this model. flashing backwards to earlier bios version can be risky.
you probably need a pentium III based motherboard to support 5.25 floppy, such as Dell xps T700(r). the spec needs to mention 5.25 diskette such as this one:
redxps630
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December 28th, 2021 22:00
There are tricks but they are not free. from howtogeek.com:
A small company called Device Side Data manufactures an adapter called the FC5025. It allows you to use an internal 5.25-inch floppy disk drive to copy data from 5.25-inch disks in various formats over a USB cable to a modern PC. The board costs around $55.
this YouTube video shows example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L3tDVLFFhA
ITHoser
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December 29th, 2021 08:00
Thank you if all else fails I will likely buy one of those. I "thought" the GX260 supported 5.25" drives in bios, and have the physical drive, data cable, and power cable so was hopeful of avoiding any extra costs... I could have SWORN I had hooked up a 5.25" drive to a desktop GX260 before, but my mind may be slipping..........
I might try GoodWill they probably hav some donations that still have 5.25" drives
Thanks for your help!
Jim
ITHoser
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December 29th, 2021 08:00
Dell-support asked for the service tag if that is useful to anyone else the tag is:
redxps630
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December 29th, 2021 08:00
Dell moderator frowns on user disclosure of private service tag, but this is a very old model. doubt any one would use the service tag for anything.
5.25 floppy was not mentioned in gx260 spec afaik.
Small form-factor computer
one for a slimline floppy drive
one bay for a slimline CD/DVD drive
Small desktop computer
one bay for a 3.5-inch floppy drive
one bay for a 5.25-inch CD/DVD drive
Small mini-tower computer
two bays for two 3.5-inch floppy drives
two bays for two 5.25-inch CD/DVD drives
ITHoser
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December 29th, 2021 09:00
Thank you ...
It could well be I have my vintage machines confused.
I have the A09 BIOS installed but the older A05, A06, and A08 are still available.
I wonder if support for the 5.25" floppies was removed in later BIOS ...
I guess downleveling BIOS is permitted? I could go back to A05 and see if it makes a difference?
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
thanks I will edit out service tag.
ITHoser
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December 29th, 2021 11:00
Thanks I'll check my closet and that of friends
speedstep
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December 29th, 2021 12:00
@redxps630
"I doubt any bios version supports 5.25 in this model."
That statement is false and has nothing whatsoever to do with BIOS updates or not.
MSDOS and 1.2 1.44 floppy drives have been supported by ALL DELL models from the PC's Limited Turbo model all the way thru Optiplex 360 760 960 models. MSDOS and Windows 3.11 work fine up to about Optiplex GX620 because after that models no longer have MSDOS VESA Video Bios or Chipsets. I have been using MSDOS since 1981 and the IBM PC, and MSDOS on a Dell Since the PC's Limited Turbo PC from 1985.
@ITHoser
Most Dell models from 1995 to about 2007 work fine with 1.2 gig, 1.44 gig floppy drives and disks. Including but not limited to GX110, GX200, GX240, GX260, GX280, GX620, GX745, GX755, GX760. Past that the connector is removed to support internal floppy HOWEVER USB floppy drives work fine for GX780 GX790. Series usually have 300 700 900 so GX380, GX780, GX980 etc.
Post pictures of your cable and drive where the jumpers are. It may be as simple as changing the drive select from 0 to 1 where there are 3 settings but only 1 jumper for each position.
5.25 INCH drives work fine but NOT with Windows Vista, 7, 8, 10
What you need is an Optiplex tower, A dual floppy 34 pin ribbon cable, and a 1.2 gig 5.25 inch drive with the floppy drive select jumper set so that the twist in the cable is what selects the drive.
https://www.amazon.com/CablesOnline-Universal-Floppy-Ribbon-5-25in/dp/B00FZ3IL80/
You will also need a Green or Skyblue OEM XP CD to install XP so that the drivers and format etc will work without issue. Newer versions of windows will try to WRITE to your DISKETTES So make sure to write protect them or they will be hozed when you try to read them.
Dell Latitude With XP CD
Mostly I recommend an Optiplex GX620 Tower for these operations because the GX620 is special.
It can run all OS from MSDOS all the way to WIN10 without issue once the bios is A15 and the Region is set for the optical drive. It also runs Linux from early builds like Puppy 5 to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.
Optiplex with XP
Drive
https://www.ebay.com/itm/115161997026
bradthetechnut
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December 29th, 2021 19:00
Not to take any of the fun away, but none of my 3.5" floppies retained any data. It'll be pretty good if the 5.25" floppies retained theirs.
speedstep
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December 29th, 2021 21:00
@bradthetechnut
@ITHoser
The floppies from 1965-1985 pre date MSDOS 1.0 from 1981.
5.25 and 8 inch floppies can retain data for decades which is why our Nuclear force still uses them for launch codes. Same with magnetic tapes if kept in cool dry place thats magnetic shielded.
No Idea where others who posted about bios ability to support floppies came from since 1.2 gig and 1.44 gig drives were supported in 1995 with windows 1.0 2.0 3.0 and MSDOS 3.XX - 6.22 etc along with Digital Research Dos and IBM DOS 7.0
Freedos also supports those media types. The 3M 100 meg super disks and 2.88 floppies were more generic because those came in USB and IDE formats like the ZIP drives did. Zip drives and Iomega died out before vista/7/8/10.
XP was the last DOS that supported Dual boot with WIN9X dos on FAT32 and had a create bootable msdos floppy option in the os. Before 1981 I used Apple Dos from 1977 as well as CPM from 1979 to 1981.
ITHoser
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December 30th, 2021 07:00
PS: the installed OS is Windows 98 SE
ITHoser
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December 30th, 2021 07:00
Thanks everyone for your help and suggestions.
I'm working with the GX260 mini-desktop because it's handy ... it would be much more ideal if I had a tower unit to mess with ...........
I have one of the cables referenced above that has the dual-row 34-pin "berg" for the motherboard ent then a 34-pin berg & (female) edge connector in the middle of the cable then the address "twist" and another pair of connectors at the end.
I have that cable plugged into the mother board and have tried several floppy drives on the FIRST edge connector ... that being the "A" drive IIRC
I am 99% certain the drives I have are good working drives.
They all have the terminating resistor IC installed
In BIOS on the "Diskette Drive A" line when I use the left-right arrows I only get two choices:
* Not Installed
* 3.5" 1.44 Mb
At boot up (with any of the several drives) I get the error: Diskette Drive Zero Seek Failure
For giggles I tried plugging the diskette into the end connector (B) If I do that I do not get the
Diskette Drive Zero Seek Failure which makes sense since it's not seeing the master drive,
and still in BIOS I only get my two choices - no drive or 3.5" 1.44
It is a later P4 based machine so perhaps support for the older drives was stripped out of BIOS..
Any suggestions apprecaited ... I'm kinda at a loss and will go scare up some other H/W unless we get a breakthrough!
ITHoser
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December 30th, 2021 08:00
and .............. the picture - jumper is on DS1
speedstep
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December 30th, 2021 19:00
Drive select and terminator look fine on that drive.
However the other end may be wrong.
The other gotcha is that DELL does not have twist in their cable so if you are using a dell 1.44 the drive select will need to be changed as well. Lastly the terminator should only be on ONE drive not both.
So try it with only the 5.25 drive
Cable is not plug any way you want.
Pin1 is the cable stripe.
I have used 1.2 gig drive in a 260 Tower and it worked fine with correct cable and orientation and drive select etc.
It may have been damaged by reversing cable.
I gave up on GX260 270 280 models due to the capacitor issue recall that ended in 2008.
GX620 tower is now as low as I will go as far as a system for recovery because it works fine with ALL OS from MSDOS to WIN10. Wont work with 11 because it does not have a TPM option, or at least 4th Gen Haswell processors. Intel and Microsoft are not supporting 11 with processors that have the Spectre / Meltdown issue.
ITHoser
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December 31st, 2021 08:00
Thanks @speedstep
Sorry I didn't do a great job describing the system board end.
I unplugged the OEM 34-pin cable from the motherboard (and unplugged power from the built-in) 1.44 drive.
I plugged in my ribbon cable to the motherboard as replacement.
My cable is almost new but has been used before, so is "proven"
It has the #1 stripe on it and the motherboard connector and connection to drive are both keyed
and I made sure they were plugged up correctly...
The drive is getting power as the disk motor turns, but there is no head-seek action.
Likely time I find a different system-unit for my dinking around
THANKS!
Jim