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Compaq Presario 5304 and 5.25" floppy

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bettablue

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Sorry for asking and being a bother again, but I am very new to this part of vintage computing. (What else is new, right?) In another post, I was asking about obtaining an old PC I could use to write floppy disks for my IBM 5150. Well, I now have a Compaq Presario 4304 desktop/mini tower. It has a CD ROM drive, 3.5" floppy, 2 USB ports, 4 Gig hard drive, and most importantly, an open 5.25inch drive bay. It is currently running DOS 6.22 as the only OS. I need to install a 5.25" 360 K DSDD drive into it for writing disks for my 5150 PC. I don't currently have the 5.25 inch drive yet, and I won't order one until I know what I need. Since the computer was free, I'm not out any money either. Right now, I know I need at least the drive and a ribbon to connect it with. While adding the physical hardware isn't going to be a problem, I don't know if adding the drive is going to be that simple.

Here's the problem as I see it. There are enough Molex connectors to power the drive, but I don't seem to have a cable or place to connect the cable to the mother board. Ultimately, I would like to be able to use both of the floppy drives when I have the 360 K unit installed. Am I missing something? Is there a floppy cable I can get that will allow both the 3.5 and 5.25 floppy drives to run off of the mother boards' floppy header? Aslo, is there anything else I need to do for the computer to recognize both drives?

Like I said earlier; sorry to be a pain. Thanks again.
 
The cable that goes to the 3.5" floppy will probably need to be replaced with a multiple connector cable. The Compaqs I remember from back then only had cables that could handle one drive. The other point is that most 5.25" drives have a flat card edge not a series of pins. There used to be cables with 5 connections; one for the motherboard and 2 drives but each drive position had 2 connectors so either type of drive could be mounted in either position. The following website has an image of what such a cable looks like: http://www.nullmodem.com/Floppy.htm

Note: Some early cables had a solitary 5.25" drive connector in the A drive position and required the 3.5" drive to be the B drive. Unless you have a bootable 5.25" floppy, that form of cable is inconvenient. Don't buy one.

Note 2: Be careful when ordering your 5.25" drive. Some places are selling single sided quad density drives as 360kB drives; those will not work with the DSDD disks the 5150 expects.
 
krebizfan said:
Note 2: Be careful when ordering your 5.25" drive. Some places are selling single sided quad density drives as 360kB drives; those will not work with the DSDD disks the 5150 expects.
Click to expand...

There are currently only 4 drives listed on E-Bay when I search DDSD 360 K floppy. I'm looking at purchasing this one even though the drive has a black face and the computer is off white. Oh, well, I'm only going to be using it to write floppies with any way. At least till the new XTIDE is released. Then I'll be able to use my 5150 to write its own disks.

Maybe I'm stupid, but I can't really find readable specs on Google. TEAC FD-55BV-11-U 5¼" Floppy Drive, 360K,DSDD,48TPI NR -

http://www.ebay.com/itm/TEAC-FD-55B...C_Drives_Storage_Internal&hash=item45f4379adf

Will this one do what I need?

Thanks again.
 
Well then, since I bought the cable and drive, I'm hoping that the install will go smoothly. I'll update this post with the results.

Thanks much.
 
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