Weird floppy drive, How to connect it?

[anon...@internet.none]

I bought a floppy drive on ebay, intending to replace the dead one in my
old Win98 desktop computer. I did not know what I was getting as far as
the cables. The drive itself is very thin, and I knew that when I bought
it, but it's wide enough to fit in the drive bay, so I only thought
there would be space around it in the bay.

What I got has NO power connector at all. It just has one plug with very
small pins, which has 26 pins. (With my poor eyes, it could be 25 pins
or something else close to 26). It says it's made for a Lenovo computer,
and this computer is a Lenovo. The drive is a Sony Model MPF820.

I'm kind of thinking this is made for a laptop computer, so maybe I cant
use it at all. It's not a big deal, I did not pay much for it, but I am
wondering of there are adaptors made for it, so it can be used on a
regular desktop data cable and power supply.

I will mention that it says 5v 750ma on it.

[Peter Jason]

It may be the IDE type, common in older systems.
https://www.backup-utility.com/clone/images/upgrade-ide-hard-drive-to-ssd-3889/laptop-internal-ide-hdd.gif

[Paul]

Power is carried on the cable itself. VCC could be +5V.

https://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/21-103-516-02.jpg?ex=2

This is a possible pinout. So far I haven't run into a document
for the MPF820 to confirm it. And no, it cannot be a "direct subset"
of the 34 pin, since one side of the 34 pin is all ground, and
one side of this has mixed power on it. One diagram I saw, somebody
only connected the VCC on pin 1 with some wire, leaving the
other pins open.

TABLE B-9 FDD Connector Pin Assignment

Pin Signal I/O Pin Signal I/O
1 VCC 2 INDEX
3 VCC 4 FDSELA
5 VCC 6 DSKCNG
7 VCC 8 READY
9 NOTCH0 10 MONA
11 LOWDNS 12 FDCDCR
13 GND 14 STEP
15 GND 16 WDATA
17 GND 18 WGATE
19 GND 20 TRACK0
21 GND 22 WPROTC
23 GND 24 RDDA
25 GND 26 SIDE

Buying adapters probably costs more than the drive itself.

http://www.cwc-group.com/c74972.html

And you'd want to check check and recheck that the
wiring is actually the right flavor. Since I did see someone
showing a diagram of a cable with "slight offset" which cannot
possibly work for a drive like this.

This one would be suited for connecting directly to the
motherboard 34-pin. You'd still need the $8 cable from
the other page though, to go from the adapter to the
bay where the floppy is installed. This thing is $10.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/1~8AAOSwc49Y8MAj/s-l300.jpg

( https://www.ebay.com/itm/1pcs-34-Pin-Floppy-Interface-to-26-pin-FFC-FPC-to-PCB-Converter-Board-Adapter-/262908814882 )

At this point, I cannot really guess at how many 26 pin standards
there are. There are at least two of them. There could be more.

Paul

[anon...@internet.none]

Yea, it looks like the adaptors would cost more than the drive. I paid
about $7 for it. The ebay pic did not show the plug, and I thought all
floppy drives for a PC had the same connectors. I guess not!

Thats the problem buying from ebay, every so often you get stung. It's
not worth trying to send it back either.

Guess I'll just order another drive, this time I will make sure the
plugs are standard.

I am curious what this drive is for though. It has to be some sort of
laptop.

By the way, the drive says it's from Sept 2006, and it did come with the
cable, but both ends of that cable are the same 26 pin skinny plug.

[Paul]

You know, I got a "spare" floppy recently (last six months)
in town here. And the drive is a Sony. An MPF920. With a
regular 34 pin connector plus 4 pin power. And it's dated
Feb.2006.

Sounds like somebody had some stock they were sitting on
for a while. Like vintage wine, 2006 was a good year.
A bumper crop.

Paul