floppy drive access/use in Win10

[Robert Baer]

I took a DVD with a win10 msi file and installed win10.

Wanted to do install on second partition pair i had made for it.

It gave absolutely zero options and no choices, so it overwrote my
win7 installation.

Was not pleases to say the least, is result when i now boot is a
Win10 that looks and works like what i had in win7 with rare exceptions,
one being this floppy drive problem.

I cannot find, thus access/use my floppy drive in Windows 10.

Google was of no help.
How can this be fixed?

Thanks

[Robert Baer]

Does Windows 10 support floppy drives at all?

[JJ]

It still include a floppy disk driver, so it does and should support it.

Is the device not detected at all in Device Manager? Not even as an unknown
device?

[Robert Baer]

Device manager lists it "This device is working properly".

Since the floppy drive does not work, the device manager is a liar.

Thanks. R. Baer

[Paul]

Let's look at the interface for the moment. Yes, it's prehistoric,
from when dino-babies were born.

1..33 | GND Interleaved ground for SI

2 | /DCD Disk Change Detect
4 | /DS4 Drive selct 4 (Not always supported)
6 | /INUSE Open collector LED driver
8 | /IND Index
10 | /DS0 Drive select 0
12 | /DS1 Drive select 1
14 | /DS2 Drive select 2
16 | /MTRON Motor enable
18 | /DIR Direction select
20 | /STEP Head step <== stepper
22 | /WDAT Write data
24 | /WGAT Write gate
26 | /TRK0 Track 0 <== step backwards until it hits the stop
28 | /WPT Write protect
30 | /RDAT Read data <== analog signal from head, to FDC controller
32 | /S1 Side select
34 | /RDY Ready/Disk change depending on drive configuration

What you should notice, is the lack of PNP (Plug and Play).

Unless the drive "makes a noise", it might not be possible
to tell anything is there.

There is no processor. No firmware. No SPI or SMBUS or things of
that nature. It's as dumb as a post.

*******

The PNP comes from the SuperIO FDC controller logic block.
Device Manager knows now, you have a SuperIO. A driver is
loaded to talk to the SuperIO FDC block. That's what Windows 10
Device Manager is telling you. It's telling you "job half done, son".

We *still* don't know two things:

1) Floppy cable connected and flipped the correct way ?
Installing the cable 180 rotated, causes the LED to stay on
and the heads to stay loaded. You will still hear a noise
if you install it backwards.

2) Is the Power cable connected ?

You typically might see an Error 40, a Seek Error or the like,
as the driver tries to steer the head to the stop and test for
presence. If the wiring is correct, there will be no error,
and the drive will still make noises.

The Index signal might also help, if media was loaded.

*******

When the machine starts, do you hear *any* sounds coming from the drive ?

Usually there are seek attempts during the startup sequence. In the BIOS,
there may be a setting or two for the floppy. My now-dead Core2 machine,
had some sort of "seek" test at BIOS level (since it actually can boot
from the floppy). Even the BIOS must do the extra work, to ascertain the
drive is actually cabled up to the SuperIO.

A quick test of sanity on the dead Core2 machine, was to insert
my "memtest" floppy and boot into memtest. If that fails, check wiring.
If the test passes, it's back to Windows you go.

And we'll assume you did not get this floppy drive at a swap
meet or a distress sale, and "it used to work". There is more than
one kind of floppy. In the BIOS, there can even be a "flavor" selector.

Paul

[Paul]

On 2/22/2022 10:48 PM, Robert Baer wrote:

Resend:

[Bradley R]

Hi Robert did you post here in 1998 and 99? when binary bill the sailor did? mr Wizard, Ed and some others? the Celeron, drilling the hole and overclocking? are those old messages archived at all

[Bradley R]

hi Robert did my other pst stick? were you here in 1998, 99 and ?

Mr Wizard, Ed and binary bill the sailor?

somehow saw groups and thought is this still active

On Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 3:58:02 AM UTC-5, Robert Baer wrote: