Thinkpads Forum

No one had an answer to this one on the ibm.ibmpc.thinkpad newsgroup, and there may not be any answer at all, but I thought it might be worth asking again here.

I'm retiring a desktop system that has a dual 5.25/3.5-inch floppy drive, and its replacement has a BIOS that will only support one floppy drive. I've still got the occasional floppy disk that needs to be read, and I wonder if there is or was any external 5.25-inch floppy drive that would work with either of these ThinkPad setups:

ThinkPad 760XL sometimes in a Dock I
ThinkPad 600X sometimes in a Dock III

I would guess the answer is No, but IBM came up with more things than most of can ever imagine, so it seemed worth asking.

Thanks for any help.

Edward Mendelson

Edward Mendelson wrote:I've still got the occasional floppy disk that needs to be read

I "solved" the same problem by first copying my 5.25 floppy collection to a HD then burning the whole thing onto a single CD-ROM. Amazingly, the floppies that I'd last updated in the mid-80s were all still readible.

Unfortunately, I've got more than a hundred old floppies around, and I have no idea when and if I'll need any one of them... But that may be the only solution.

Edward Mendelson wrote:No one had an answer to this one on the ibm.ibmpc.thinkpad newsgroup, and there may not be any answer at all, but I thought it might be worth asking again here.

I just hadn't gotten to you yet Ed!

Edward Mendelson wrote:I'm retiring a desktop system that has a dual 5.25/3.5-inch floppy drive, and its replacement has a BIOS that will only support one floppy drive. I've still got the occasional floppy disk that needs to be read, and I wonder if there is or was any external 5.25-inch floppy drive that would work with either of these ThinkPad setups:

I'd have to agree with Hausman that the easiest thing to do would be to copy them to a HD or some other media. Zip maybe?

Regards,

James

Well, the plot is thickening. IBM made an external 1.2 MB floppy for the PS/2 series and others, with the part number IBM 4869-002. This uses a cable with a 37-pin D connector - which apparently connects to a port on many old ISA floppy controllers. I've got a spare ISA slot on my SelectaDock III and if I can ever find the right controller, I may give it a try. But it may not be worth the effort, and may need drivers that don't exist or that may work only in DOS.

The other option is to try a SCSI floppy drive (they used to be common in Apple-land) and connect it to the external SCSI connector on one of the docks - if the right cable can be found...

Edward Mendelson wrote:The other option is to try a SCSI floppy drive (they used to be common in Apple-land) and connect it to the external SCSI connector on one of the docks - if the right cable can be found...

You did not mention the SelectaDock. That would probably work. Apple 5.25 in floppies were wierd. I don't think they would work for you. I don't remember what the wierdness was. Hard formatting or something. When Apple went to the 3.5 in floppies, they went with standard hardware and their own formatting. Those can read IBM disks, but won't help you much.

Lastly, consider that floppies are getting a bit long in the tooth if they are as old as it sounds. It might be prudent, at this juncture, to move the data to a CD-ROM and make a couple of copies. If the disks are just plain data, just copy the data to 100 directories(1 for each disk) and sort it out later. If some are boot floppies or some format where they won't readily copy, tell me a little about them so I can suggest something. I have backed up a number of floppies using dd under linux, but you won't have a 5.25 in drive to restore them. So, that option has less value.
Good luck,

Edward Mendelson wrote:Unfortunately, I've got more than a hundred old floppies around, and I have no idea when and if I'll need any one of them... But that may be the only solution.

Let's say it takes 1 to 2 minutes to copy each floppy to your HD and another 15 minutes to burn a CD. Yes, it will be tedious and boring, but it shouldn't take more than about 3 hours (even if it feels like a lot longer )

How much time are you going to spend looking for the right floppy interface and/or cables and then futzing around to make it all work? And once you're done you'll still need to keep all that stuff around in case you want to read a floppy in the future.

The CD solution seems the best, but I enjoy messing around with the hardware, and it seems that a possible solution will cost about ten US dollars, so I'll try it if I can. The IBM 4869-002 external drive should do the job, and there were quite a few ISA floppy controllers with the external 37-pin interface. Switch settings for these are available on the web. I'll wait until I can pick one up.

The other solution that occurs to me is this - and it MAY work. I could continue to use the dual-floppy drive with the one-floppy BIOS, and see what happens when I tell the BIOS that the floppy is a 1.2MB model instead of the default 1.4 model.

What are you doing with the 5 1/4" bay in the Selectadock?

How about mounting the 5 1/4" drive there, connecting the floppy cable that goes to the accessory tray, and using that?

Hope this helps.

Bruce,

Interesting idea - but if I remember correctly, there's no standard floppy cable in the Selectadock III - it uses UltraBay floppy drives only. Or am I misremembering something?

The accessory tray for the Ultrabay contains two connectors; one is a 40-pin IDE, and the other is a floppy. Disconnect your accessory tray (on the left) and you should have the cable you need.

Now about whether the BIOS will recognize a 5 1/4...

Ah -- yes, the BIOS will be an interesting question... Will give it a try, though.

It's been three years since I asked this question, but I finally found an answer: a company called MicroSolutions made two models of their BackPack parallel-port-connected floppy drive, one with a 5.25" drive, one with a 3.5" drive.

There were drivers for DOS and Windows 95/98. I got one on eBay a while back, hooked it up to a 760XL in a Dock I through the parallel port, and it worked. Slower than anything I remember, but at least it reads the 1.2MB disks.

Just filing this information in case anyone else needs it someday...

Ah, MicroSolutions. They made the first external CD-RW I ever owned. Was a TEAC in an external enclosure that worked on anything....except my 760XD, of course.

Looked into updated drivers from them, and it turns out they went under. Shame.

Wish I had seen this thread sooner.

I actually have one of those Microsolutions Backpack 5.25" drives, in pretty decent condition with the original box, manuals and driver disks. It worked pretty well with the older Thinkpads I tried it with.

The only thing that sucks about it is that it's a beast - really heavy and really clunky. Plus it has a big power supply. Kinda kills the idea of portability.

I wish I could keep it but I really don't have the space. It still works great. If anyone wants it, drop me a line.