Thinkpads Forum

Hi,

I've given this old TP USB capability via a cardbus, and I've been able to connect a thumb drive and an external cdrom drive with no problem. On the other hand, I can't get a USB floppy to work. I don't know if it's a device driver problem or a BIOS issue as the computer doesn't see the hardware at all. I've played around with the BIOS start-up config to no avail (the BIOS startup lists a FDD-2 option), and I swapped out the internal floppy drive with a cdrom drive. Still, the usb floppy is not recognized. Is there something very basic that I'm overlooking, or is it this machine can't be configured to accept two floppy drives (even though the internal A: drive is physically removed)? I appreciate you thoughts or advice.

That machine is too old to enable USB support of any device in BIOS.

The BIOS can't even see the PC card slots themselves, let alone anything inserted in them.

Regards,

James

I have a ThinkPad 760E with the latest BIOS, and it can, infact, see the PCMCIA slots, it can even boot from them if you have a network card and/or PCMCIA hard drive. It's either the BIOS does not recognize CardBus cards (all USB cards are CardBus, which is controlled by Windows) and/or it does not recognize the USB chipset within the card. The 760EL was in production in 1996, a good year or so (give or take) before desktops had USB ports/support and a good two or so years (give or take) before laptops had USB ports/support. Another thing to remember is that CardBus support on these computers won't be the best, the 760EL/E/ED were the first ThinkPads with CardBus support. If you need to boot your ThinkPad from the floppy, search eBay for a 760 floppy drive, an external would be best since they leave room in the Ultrabay for a cd-rom or spare battery and they can be taken out of their shell and used as an internal drive.

Appreciate the response guys.

My issue is not the Cardbus itself as that device works fine with other USB peripherals attached to this machine. My issue is whether there is some anomaly or config issue with a USB Floppy Drive that prevents me from using this on a 760EL. My BIOS does indeed supprt PCMCIA, but that capability has not proven to be of any help to me in this matter. It just seems that if a 760EL will operate a USB Thumb Drive and a USB CDROM drive, it would logically operate a USB Floppy Drive. I know I may be able to use a different type of external floppy drive, but the USB type is what I have. Thanks.

I'd bet that if you boot the computer and look, your OS will see the USB floppy.

What it won't do is use the USB floppy as a boot device.

There is a big difference.

The OS loads the Cardbus driver and the Cardbus driver has an applet for the USB floppy. The BIOS doesn't recognize this device.

I believe the 760's only recognized a PC-Card CD-ROM or a PC-Card network card as valid boot devices.

Thanks Bruce, but the O/S doesn't see the device either. The USB Floppy is lifeless in this machine, and I've given up beating a dead horse. This 760 probably doesn't have bus speed to power the device up. At least, that's all I can come up. Thanks again!