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Home / I-Opener Areas / I-Opener Technical Stuff Floppy Drive are there any spots on the iopener mobo to attach a floppy drive

Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) YouBecha Profile I have dug through the archives but haven't found the answer. Is there any location on the motherboard to attach a floppy, any solder pads etc? I know they were found for the PCMCIA port. The reason this is coming up is I just installed WinME, and of course it hides its DOS support, and while it was installing, it overwrote the boot tag on my sandisk. So now my sandisk (which was the backup boot floppy) won't boot either. I will try to get sandisk back up, but having a floppy port to plug into would sure be handy. Also I agree that the alternative of adding a CDROM to the IDE chain would probably solve the problem. http://www.geocities.com/mr_bubba_zanetti/ 01-21-2001 08:28:17

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile The solder pads on the board are for a compact flash(CF), not a pcmcia... Nobody ever found any evidence of floppy support on this M-board. The real solution is a bootable cdrom....this could be accomplished through a BIOS fix, and an easily installed cdrom. If Badflash ever comes up with one, I'll be the first to buy it!!!!! 01-21-2001 09:05:20

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile Well I guess I must be "Nobody". I have worked out the pads for the floppy drive port. The fifteen signals that make up a normal floppy port are all brought out to fifteen little test pads on the back of the motherboard. You only need to wire these to a 2x17 header and add a 12volt regulator to the 19 volt supply to get a floppy to work. I plan on documenting this in some labeled picture of the back once I verify it works. The VIA South Bridge chip clearly has all the logic for a floppy. There are many test pads on the back of the motherboard. The trick is to know which ones are for the floppy port since they are not in any kind of order. 01-21-2001 14:19:58

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) YouBecha Profile Thanks, sounds like it is still out of reach for the time being. 01-21-2001 15:04:18

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Well, what do you know? Let me re-phrase that......Nobody ever got a floppy working off an I-Opener yet. If anyone does, it'll probably be Turbo3. 01-21-2001 15:30:01

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) mp3boombox Profile | Email I HAVE ACCESS TO A LOT OF laptop floppy drives. if we could get a LAPTOP floppy drive working that would be the best. I'v got access to the ultra thin one's ibm laptop floppys. TURBO3 if i where to get one and send it to you. this could be areal brake threw for us all. cause the ultra thin laptop floppy drives could more likly fit inside the io with a hole cut out. mainly cause there so THIN DUE TO NOT HAVING any kind of an outer casing. OR just build an external plug and use one of the external super flat IBM drives. even then i dotn know if they run on standerd floppy syngnals or what? 01-21-2001 15:53:08

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile The key is having a cable from the laptop drive to connect to and knowing the pin out. If you have a drive you want me to test, then sure sent it I will give it a try but I will need a spec for the connector if it is not standard. To start with I will just use a standard desktop drive and 34 wire flat cable for testing. 01-21-2001 16:17:43

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile Ok, I have added three new pictures to my pictures page in the "Floppy Connector" album. http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/turbo3pictures The first is a labeled shot of the back of the motherboard. Here is the mapping from the module pad numbers to a normal 2x17 floppy header. All the odd numbers get ground. D9 2. DRVDEN0 -- 4 -- 6 D7 8. -INDEX E9 10 -MTR0 A8 12 -DS1 B8 14 -DS0 C8 16 -MTR1 D8 18 -DIR E8 20 -STEP A7 22 -WDATA B7 24 -WGATE E7 26 -TRK00 A6 28 -WRTPRT B6 30 -RDATA C7 32 -HDSEL C6 34 -DSKCHG The board in the pictures is the stripped one from programmer so it is non-functional. I wired it up to a connector so I could verify all the test point pads go to the correct module pads which are on the other side. It also gave me a chance to practice soldering to the small circular pads. The board is a Rev I (i not one) and there are two other Revs (H and J) that Netpliance used for V1s, V4, and V5 iopeners. I need to look at the others to see if there is any difference in pad location. The second and third pictures show my test wiring. The next step is to redo all this on a functional board and add in the power connector and 12 volt regulator. 01-21-2001 18:34:29

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) starfish Profile Come on, Your Teasing Us ! I don't see any New Pictures. I assume, I could use a External Power Supply, say from a WebSurfer Thanks Again, for All of Your Assistance to Everyone ! * StarFish * 01-21-2001 18:54:48

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile Try it now. (It helps to make the album "Public".) 01-21-2001 19:03:30

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile I am now starting to add the Floppy Connector to a fully functioning iopener motherboard. This is a Version 5 which has the Rev J motherboard. I checked and the test point pads are in the same place as the Rev I MB. I am posting pictures of the mod as I complete each step. The first two are up and show the mounting of a real 2x17 connector to the edge of the MB. Pin 1 will be near the Keyboard/mouse connector. Since all the odd pins go to ground I just soldered all of them to the ground plane running around the back edge of the board. This also provides all the support needed for the connector. 01-21-2001 20:41:44

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) YouBecha Profile I am not worthy... 01-21-2001 22:18:14

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile Anyone know if there is a spot on the MB to get a switched 19v that is off when the iopener is off and on when it is on. Right now I only see 19v anytime the power brick is plugged in even if the iopener is off. I need this for the 12v regulator. Otherwise there will be 12v to the floppy all the time. That may not be a problem but I would prefer if it was off when the iopener was off. 01-21-2001 22:21:23

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile Ok, I need some help here. Probably from Wild_Pencil. The FDD controller is "Disabled" in the BIOS and can not be enabled. Must be hardcoded off like the built in sound was on the version 5s. I am doing an install of Win98se on the machine to see if it will find the floppy anyway. Since windows seemed to think it always had an A drive this may still work once windows is up. But for now you can not boot from the floppy. 01-21-2001 23:12:17

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile Ok, no luck getting the Floppy Drive to work. I am pretty sure this is due to the BIOS having the FDD Controller hardcoded to "DISABLED" with no option to enable it. Without it being enabled you can not set the type of floppy drive you have. So it looks like we need a new BIOS from BADFLASH with the help of Wild_Pencil to create it. 01-22-2001 01:08:54

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile I have been playing around with reprogramming the VIA South Bridge chip to enable the floppy controller. Slow progress but no signs of life from the floppy drive. I have gotten it to the point that a scan for new hardware in Windows discovers a standard floppy controller and installs it. One thing I did discover is that there is an option to redirect the floppy port to the parallel port. I have an IBM 701 Thinkpad and they have a combination parallel port/floppy port. I have two cables, one parallel the other goes to an external floppy. So if we can get this working you would not need to rewire your iopener to get a floppy. The documentation is not too clear on the state of the bit that controls this so I may actually be sending floppy data out the parallel port. Will have to try the other state and see what happens. 01-22-2001 21:30:54

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) starfish Profile Turbo3, Thanks for All of Your Documentation. You Make this Advanced Hack, Easy. (Still Not a First Project, If You have Nevered Soldered before !) I skipped the Header & cut the End off of the Ribbion Cable, Tinned, Tirmed, & Soldered right to the Board, securing with Hot Melt Glue. I Recommend the Header, like You did. For the Record, I did a V4b. Thanks again, & I Hope Someone with the SoftWare Skills, finds the Time to Help Finish this ! 01-22-2001 21:45:44

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile There is life. Switched to DOS mode and ran my floppy configuration code then a small program to select and turn on the motor. The green light comes on and the motor spins. You do need to have a floppy in the drive for the motor to spin. No luck yet getting it to rezero or seek. Need to get a pdf file for a standalone floppy controller with some programming examples. 01-22-2001 23:00:18

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) mp3boombox Profile | Email trubo soon as you email me or ICQ me your address INFO I'LL MAIL you the IBM laptop floppy drives. these take a 26pin connector. i cracked one of them open. and the controler every thing loks prity standerd floppy wise. when you get it if you can get it working correctly the only thing i'm going to request back is the little metal connector. the 26pin connector. just because if we get this working i'd like to have the connector to use with the cable so i can make this look NEAT on my io. these are 5v floppy drives also. p/n 1619696 fru p/n 48G9896 fcc id: ANO15G9869 ON BAR CODE L1W40006217 date: 93-25 REV: A01 other numbers S-824 E75017 LR53510 i DONT KNOW IF any of these will help right off but you never know?? soon as i have the address i'll mail it to you. again if you can get these well one of these going aside from the connector you can keep the drive. :) 01-23-2001 18:14:23

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile Today's Status: I have gotten my first real command to execute. It was a "Sense Drive Status" 0x04. The only interesting thing it reports back is the state of the Write Protect tab. But that is more than enough for me. I was able to verify that it really was reading from the attached floppy drive by changing the tab on a floppy disk. ********** Ok, just tried a "Relative Seek" and the drive buzzed for the first time so I guess it worked. However, the ending status was still "Busy" so I have a little more programming to do. Basically I am just trying to verify that the drive is connected properly and can be controlled from the iopener. We still need a new BIOS that enables the floppy controller at boot up time. But electrically things look very good. I am using a 12v regulator on the iopeners 19v supply to generate the 12v for the desktop floppy drive. 01-24-2001 01:46:38

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile I tried to use the program MODBIN to change the default BIOS settings. It shows the Floppy Controller disabled but the normal +/- keys do not work to change it. Still need help on the BIOS to get the Floppy Controller enabled. 01-26-2001 09:31:03

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Programmer Profile as far as switched 12v, why not put in a solid state relay on the input to your 12v regulator? 01-26-2001 10:23:09

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile I will have to check the current drawn from the 12v regulator with the power off. If it is not much then I will just leave it connected directly to the 19v supply. If it is only used to drive the floppy motor then there should be very little used when the motor is off and not worth the trouble of adding another component. 01-26-2001 18:06:39

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) mp3boombox Profile | Email so long as the moble floppy works out you wont even need the 12v 01-26-2001 23:00:13

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile Still in DOS mode but I have made a lot of progress. I now have test programs that make the floppy drive do a Recalibrate, Random Seeks, and Random Sector Reads. For the reads I manually set up DMA channel 2 (standard one for floppy xfers) to transfer a sector to a buffer and then dump the buffer to the screen. The floppy disk is filled with text files so it is easy to see that it works. My next goal is to get the BIOS floppy calls to work which may lead to DOS working as well. The current test programs read and write directly to the floppy disk controller. Anyone know how to restart DOS without going through a cold restart? If I could do this then DOS would most likely see the floppy controller and setup all the system variables and tables for floppy access. 01-28-2001 01:58:51

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Programmer Profile Call Int 19 From Browns Interrupt List INT 19 - SYSTEM - BOOTSTRAP LOADER Desc: This interrupt reboots the system without clearing memory or restoring interrupt vectors. Because interrupt vectors are preserved, this interrupt usually causes a system hang if any TSRs have hooked vectors from 00h through 1Ch, particularly INT 08. Notes: Usually, the BIOS will try to read sector 1, head 0, track 0 from drive A: to 0000h:7C00h. If this fails, and a hard disk is installed, the BIOS will read sector 1, head 0, track 0 of the first hard disk. This sector should contain a master bootstrap loader and a partition table (see #00650). After loading the master boot sector at 0000h:7C00h, the master bootstrap loader is given control (see #00653). It will scan the partition table for an active partition, and will then load the operating system's bootstrap loader (contained in the first sector of the active partition) and give it control. true IBM PCs and most clones issue an INT 18 if neither floppy nor hard disk have a valid boot sector to accomplish a warm boot equivalent to Ctrl-Alt-Del, store 1234h in 0040h:0072h and jump to FFFFh:0000h. For a cold boot equivalent to a reset, store 0000h at 0040h:0072h before jumping. VDISK.SYS hooks this interrupt to allow applications to find out how much extended memory has been used by VDISKs (see #00649). DOS 3.3+ PRINT hooks INT 19 but does not set up a correct VDISK header block at the beginning of its INT 19 handler segment, thus causing some programs to overwrite extended memory which is already in use. the default handler is at F000h:E6F2h for 100% compatible BIOSes MS-DOS 3.2+ hangs on booting (even from floppy) if the hard disk contains extended partitions which point at each other in a loop, since it will never find the end of the linked list of extended partitions under Windows Real and Enhanced modes, calling INT 19 will hang the system in the same was as under bare DOS; under Windows Standard mode, INT 19 will successfully perform a cold reboot as it appears to have been redirected to a MOV AL,0FEh/OUT 64h,AL sequence BUG: when loading the remainder of the DOS system files fails, various versions of IBMBIO.COM/IO.SYS incorrectly restore INT 1E before calling INT 19, assuming that the boot sector had stored the contents of INT 1E at DS:SI instead of on the stack as it actually does SeeAlso: INT 14/AH=17h,INT 18"BOOT HOOK",INT 49"Tandy 2000",INT 5B"PC Cluster" SeeAlso: MEM 0040h:0067h,MEM F000h:FFF0h,CMOS 0Fh Format of VDISK header block (at beginning of INT 19 handler's segment): Offset Size Description (Table 00649) 00h 18 BYTEs n/a (for VDISK.SYS, the device driver header) 12h 11 BYTEs signature string "VDISK Vn.m" for VDISK.SYS version n.m 1Dh 15 BYTEs n/a 2Ch 3 BYTEs linear address of first byte of available extended memory Format of hard disk master boot sector: Offset Size Description (Table 00650) 00h 446 BYTEs Master bootstrap loader code 1BEh 16 BYTEs partition record for partition 1 (see #00651) 1CEh 16 BYTEs partition record for partition 2 1DEh 16 BYTEs partition record for partition 3 1EEh 16 BYTEs partition record for partition 4 1FEh WORD signature, AA55h indicates valid boot block Format of partition record: Offset Size Description (Table 00651) 00h BYTE boot indicator (80h = active partition) 01h BYTE partition start head 02h BYTE partition start sector (bits 0-5) 03h BYTE partition start track (bits 8,9 in bits 6,7 of sector) 04h BYTE operating system indicator (see #00652) 05h BYTE partition end head 06h BYTE partition end sector (bits 0-5) 07h BYTE partition end track (bits 8,9 in bits 6,7 of sector) 08h DWORD sectors preceding partition 0Ch DWORD length of partition in sectors SeeAlso: #00650 (Table 00652) Values for operating system indicator: 00h empty partition-table entry 01h DOS 12-bit FAT 02h XENIX root file system 03h XENIX /usr file system (obsolete) 04h DOS 16-bit FAT (up to 32M) 05h DOS 3.3+ extended partition 06h DOS 3.31+ Large File System (16-bit FAT, over 32M) 07h QNX 07h OS/2 HPFS 07h Windows NT NTFS 07h Advanced Unix 07h see partition boot record; could be any of the above or others 08h OS/2 (v1.0-1.3 only) 08h AIX bootable partition, SplitDrive 08h Commodore DOS 08h DELL partition spanning multiple drives 09h AIX data partition 09h Coherent filesystem 0Ah OS/2 Boot Manager 0Ah OPUS 0Ah Coherent swap partition 0Bh Windows95 with 32-bit FAT 0Ch Windows95 with 32-bit FAT (using LBA-mode INT 13 extensions) 0Eh logical-block-addressable VFAT (same as 06h but using LBA-mode INT 13) 0Fh logical-block-addressable VFAT (same as 05h but using LBA-mode INT 13) 10h OPUS 11h OS/2 Boot Manager hidden 12-bit FAT partition 12h Compaq Diagnostics partition 14h (resulted from using Novell DOS 7.0 FDISK to delete Linux Native part) 14h OS/2 Boot Manager hidden sub-32M 16-bit FAT partition 16h OS/2 Boot Manager hidden over-32M 16-bit FAT partition 17h OS/2 Boot Manager hidden HPFS partition 17h hidden NTFS partition 18h AST special Windows swap file ("Zero-Volt Suspend" partition) 19h Willowtech Photon coS 1Bh hidden Windows95 FAT32 partition 1Ch hidden Windows95 FAT32 partition (using LBA-mode INT 13 extensions) 1Eh hidden LBA VFAT partition 20h Willowsoft Overture File System (OFS1) 21h officially listed as reserved 21h FSo2 23h officially listed as reserved 24h NEC MS-DOS 3.x 26h officially listed as reserved 31h officially listed as reserved 33h officially listed as reserved 34h officially listed as reserved 36h officially listed as reserved 38h Theos 3Ch PowerQuest PartitionMagic recovery partition 40h VENIX 80286 41h Personal RISC Boot 41h PowerPC boot partition 42h SFS (Secure File System) by Peter Gutmann 45h EUMEL/Elan 46h EUMEL/Elan 47h EUMEL/Elan 48h EUMEL/Elan 4Fh Oberon boot/data partition 50h OnTrack Disk Manager, read-only partition 51h OnTrack Disk Manager, read/write partition 51h NOVELL 52h CP/M 52h Microport System V/386 53h OnTrack Disk Manager, write-only partition??? 54h OnTrack Disk Manager (DDO) 55h EZ-Drive (see also INT 13/AH=FFh"EZ-Drive") 56h GoldenBow VFeature 5Ch Priam EDISK 61h SpeedStor 63h Unix SysV/386, 386/ix 63h Mach, MtXinu BSD 4.3 on Mach 63h GNU HURD 64h Novell NetWare 286 64h SpeedStore 65h Novell NetWare (3.11) 67h Novell 68h Novell 69h Novell 70h DiskSecure Multi-Boot 71h officially listed as reserved 73h officially listed as reserved 74h officially listed as reserved 75h PC/IX 76h officially listed as reserved 7Eh F.I.X. 80h Minix v1.1 - 1.4a 81h Minix v1.4b+ 81h Linux 81h Mitac Advanced Disk Manager 82h Linux Swap partition 82h Prime 82h Solaris (Unix) 83h Linux native file system (ext2fs/xiafs) 84h OS/2-renumbered type 04h partition (related to hiding DOS C: drive) 85h Linux EXT 86h FAT16 volume/stripe set (Windows NT) 87h HPFS Fault-Tolerant mirrored partition 87h NTFS volume/stripe set 93h Amoeba file system 94h Amoeba bad block table 98h Datalight ROM-DOS SuperBoot 99h Mylex EISA SCSI A0h Phoenix NoteBIOS Power Management "Save-to-Disk" partition A1h officially listed as reserved A3h officially listed as reserved A4h officially listed as reserved A5h FreeBSD, BSD/386 A6h OpenBSD A9h NetBSD (http://www.netbsd.org/) B1h officially listed as reserved B3h officially listed as reserved B4h officially listed as reserved B6h officially listed as reserved B6h Windows NT mirror set (master), FAT16 file system B7h BSDI file system (secondarily swap) B7h Windows NT mirror set (master), NTFS file system B8h BSDI swap partition (secondarily file system) BEh Solaris boot partition C0h DR DOS/DR-DOS/Novell DOS secured partition C0h CTOS C1h DR DOS 6.0 LOGIN.EXE-secured 12-bit FAT partition C4h DR DOS 6.0 LOGIN.EXE-secured 16-bit FAT partition C6h DR DOS 6.0 LOGIN.EXE-secured Huge partition C6h corrupted FAT16 volume/stripe set (Windows NT) C6h Windows NT mirror set (slave), FAT16 file system C7h Syrinx Boot C7h corrupted NTFS volume/stripe set C7h Windows NT mirror set (slave), NTFS file system CBh Reserved for DR DOS/DR-DOS/OpenDOS secured FAT32 CCh Reserved for DR DOS/DR-DOS secured FAT32 (LBA) CEh Reserved for DR DOS/DR-DOS secured FAT16 (LBA) D0h Multiuser DOS secured FAT12 D1h Old Multiuser DOS secured FAT12 D4h Old Multiuser DOS secured FAT16 (<= 32M) D5h Old Multiuser DOS secured extended partition D6h Old Multiuser DOS secured FAT16 (> 32M) D8h CP/M-86 DBh CP/M, Concurrent CP/M, Concurrent DOS DBh CTOS (Convergent Technologies OS) E1h SpeedStor 12-bit FAT extended partition E2h DOS read-only (Florian Painke's XFDISK 1.0.4) E3h DOS read-only E3h Storage Dimensions E4h SpeedStor 16-bit FAT extended partition E5h officially listed as reserved E6h officially listed as reserved EBh BeOS BFS (BFS1) F1h Storage Dimensions F2h DOS 3.3+ secondary partition F3h officially listed as reserved F4h SpeedStor F4h Storage Dimensions F5h Prologue F6h officially listed as reserved FEh LANstep FEh IBM PS/2 IML (Initial Microcode Load) partition FFh Xenix bad block table Note: for partition type 07h, one should inspect the partition boot record for the actual file system type SeeAlso: #00651 (Table 00653) Values Bootstrap loader is called with (IBM BIOS): CS:IP = 0000h:7C00h DH = access bits 7-6,4-0: don't care bit 5: =0 device supported by INT 13 DL = boot drive 00h first floppy 80h first hard disk 01-30-2001 12:00:33

Excellent work (modified 0 times) WitchDoctor Profile <vouch support> Just wanted y'all to know that I'm very interested in this. </vouch> Regarding the comments about CD-ROM support- if you can get a floppy drive working at the BIOS level, wouldn't it be trivial (relatively speaking) to add bootable CD-ROM support while you're in there? Still, if I had to choose between them, I'd choose the floppy. 01-30-2001 21:08:18

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile Good news. I decided to measure the idle current for the 12v going to the desktop floppy drive when the iopener is powered but not powered ON. The current turned out to be unmeasurable. Then I tried measuring the current while seeking and it too was unmeasurable. I then disconnected the 12v from the floppy and did some seeks and data reads. They worked just fine. So it seems some (perhaps all) desktop floppy drives use only 5v even though they have 5 & 12 volts available. The drive I was testing is a TEAC FD-235HF. So we may not need to worry about putting in a 12v regulator. This makes the hack even easier. No active components need. 01-30-2001 23:29:42

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) GWIZAH Profile | Email Man oh man, This is great news...If this floppy mod works I can run an emu on My I-op no problems, lets just hope we can get it to boot from a floppy too. for rationale see this thread http://www.linux-hacker.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl?Action=ShowPost&Board=technical&Post=2006 01-31-2001 10:51:32

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) iBill Profile I have been reading this thread with great interest. I notice there are others here looking to use their iopener to run emu. Couldn't one simply load dos and the emu software into the sandisk and not worry about the floppy? I want to run mine fanless and as stripped as possible to fit inside my ird. Thanks 01-31-2001 19:34:20

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile Here is what we need added to the BIOS to enable the Floppy Controller in the South Bridge chip. The function is controlled by writing to the "Super I/O Configuration" "Index/Data" port registers (Port 0x3F0 and 0x3F1). However, you must first enable this function through a PCI Configuration register in the Function 0 register (PCI to ISA Bridge) space. Here are the steps: 1. At offset 0x85 in Function 0 (PCI to ISA Bridge) OR in 0x02 to enable Super I/O Configuration changes. 2. Write 0xE2 to Port 0x3F0 (index) then read Port 0x3F1 and OR in 0x10 and write it back to Port 3F1. This enables the Floppy Controller. This register also has the bits that enable the two serial ports and sets the parallel port mode (ECP/EPP/Normal/Disable) so the BIOS already has code that sets up this register. We just need to have one more bit set. 3. Write 0xE3 to Port 0x3F0 then write 0xFC to port 0x3F1. This sets the starting port address for the Floppy Controller to the normal value of 0x3F0. 4. At offset 0x85 in Function 0 (PCI to ISA Bridge) AND in 0xFD to disable Super I/O Configuration changes. So in summary all that is needed is to set a master enable bit then set a bit to enable the Floppy Controller and set the Floppy Controllers port registers to start at 0x3F0 then turn off the master enable bit. So Wild_Pencil when can we expect an updated BIOS (please)? You could even hardcode these changes to always enable the Floppy Controller. I have a DOS program that does all these steps and allows me to run test programs to read data from a floppy so I know this works. The problem is a reboot sets everything back to the BIOS default of no floppy controller so I can not get normal DOS or Windows support working. At this point I have done all I can. We need a new BIOS to complete this hack. 02-01-2001 00:10:35

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) r_fl_z Profile | Email iBill: Yes, that will work fine. However, there are reasons one might want to run a floppy from the iO...not the least of which is, it's one hell of a hacking challenge :P BBOOIINNNGGGG...it ain't floppy NOW! 02-01-2001 01:39:25

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile Two more steps to setup the DMA channel and IRQ that the Floppy Controller uses. 5. At offset 0x50 in Function 0 (PCI to ISA Bridge) OR in 0x02 to select DMA channel 2. 6. At offset 0x51 in Function 0 (PCI to ISA Bridge) OR in 0x06 to select IRQ 6. 02-01-2001 09:42:05

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Wild_Pencil Profile | Email Turbo3, If you can email me the .ASM source for your DOS floppy controller enabler, I can embed into a ROM and attach it to the Award BIOS, using the same ROM Wrapper wrote for Smart Boot Manager. Shouldn't be more than a few hours' work, and I do have some free time this weekend. Let me know, and I'll email you a beta ROM to test out. 02-01-2001 23:06:29

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Programmer Profile DOS accesses the floppy (and the HD) through BIOS functions. Hence the reason for IBM Compatability. In order for the floppy to work properly under dos, the bios must become aware that the floppy controller exists and should be active, and a floppy must be listed. Windows on the other hand should detect the controller as long as it was activated before windows boots. 02-02-2001 07:44:35

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile My test programs are currently written in Pascal so I will need to look into converting it to assembler. The Pascal uses the PCI BIOS support to read and write the PCI configuration registers so I will also need to trace that and pick out the code fragments we need. The rest would be just IN and OUT instructions to read/write the port registers. You normally need to detect the location of the PCI hardware but we can probably skip that and hard code it. 02-02-2001 10:46:58

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) mp3boombox Profile | Email Would it be extreamly harder to put the CODE into the bios it's self??? i was going to use the bootable BIOS for booting cdrom's but i got rid of it about 5min after i installed it. Just due to the little wrapper poping up with the boot option's. To be honist if the support pop's up an other window like that no matter how much i'd love to have a floppy working on this i wouldnt use the patched bios. Just because i dont wnat to have to hit a DAM button every time i want to boot the computer. granted i know jack diddly about programing but if this edited code could be enterd into the bios easly instead of added as an out side program that would be great. 02-02-2001 14:31:58

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Wild_Pencil Profile | Email It's harder to insert code directly into the BIOS, rather than create an extension ROM that you can simply attach. You'd definitely need a good disassembly listing to see where to add the proper hooks. The CDROM hack is just an easy (for me to implement) "quickie-job" to get CDROM functionality needed.. by embedding someone else's code. Spending several intense nights staring at .ASM disassembly listings, just to produce the "pefect" BIOS is not an option for me, sorry. However, I'd happily generate a new BIOS if someone else wants to do the .ASM guess-work, and email me their BIOS patches against the v5 BIOS's original.tmp. -WP 02-04-2001 00:09:13

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile Code fragment sent to WP. I tried starting in DOS mode, executing the code to enable the floppy controller and then typing WIN to start up windows. Floppy Controller was detected and installed but still got General Failure when I tried to access the A: drive. I was able to start a DOS window and run my test read program that dumps data from the floppy to the screen. So there is still some software setup that I am missing since the hardware works just fine. 02-06-2001 00:19:24

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Programmer Profile look on the performance tab to see if your floppy is listed as real mode; if so, then it is attempting to control it using teh same bios calls that dos is, (which will obviously fail). If so, you'll need to clean up the registry or reinstall If Not, windows is expecting something to be configured in a specific manner when it boots.. (I'd bet on real mode though) 02-06-2001 07:30:59

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile Yes, it is in Real Mode. Any hints on what to look for in the registry? I'll try an uninstall/reinstall tonight and see if that helps any. 02-06-2001 10:08:33

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Programmer Profile Try deleting the whatever is found under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Enum/FLOP/ This should remove any reference to the Undetectable A drive (the one that wasn't there to begin with) and allow windows to detect the connected one. On an interesting note, my machine at work (not an IO) lists the Floppy controller as a subfunction of the bios. implying that perhaps win98SE looks to the bios for floppy support (though it SHOULD not have detected the controller if that's the case.. though, I can't say that I don't think MS has done idiot things befoe.. :) ) 02-06-2001 12:07:06

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) mp3boombox Profile | Email heh programer "though, I can't say that I don't think MS has done idiot things befoe.. :) )" I'll take your word for it ;) LOL. 02-06-2001 14:50:52

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Turbo3 Profile HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Enum/FLOP/ does not exist which is probably the problem. I may try manually entering it and see what happens. There should also be an entry under BIOS/*PNP0700 for the Floppy Disk Controller. 02-06-2001 23:06:19

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) GWIZAH Profile | Email Okay this is slightly off-topic but, I own a Dual-PIII 600 NT workstation and I've been having floppy problems for awhile. I've tried practically everything to fix it. Okay so my floppy doesnt access but its displayed in Windows NT explorer. I get the error: "A:\ not accessible. The parameter is incorrect." But, Windows NT boots from an NT startup disk. I've tried a new floppy drive 3 times. they all work perfect in another box. I've tried changing the cables 3 times. I've tried a new mobo. I've checked the Bios. I've tried changing settings in the Reg. Allocate floppies, true, etc. I've tried adding a new drive and changing drive letters. I've tried everything suggested by tech support and nothing seems to work. I've been on several NG's and forums and no help in sight. Well you guys are my last hope, you seem to know a lot more about hardware and software than anyone else, so Im asking politely, Can you help me? Ive been using my zip drive and CD burner to move stupid 10k files back and forth from work for 2 months! Can you guys suggest something? I know this isn't an NT forum, so you can email any replies to keep this thread small. TIA! 02-07-2001 11:33:17

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) D2tw4all Profile Just a small possibility, but try booting with a floppy in the drive. Either disable boot off floppy drive in BIOS or put the disk in just after it starts booting to NT, see if after booting with a disk in the drive it works. Just something weird I saw once, humor me. Otherwise, when you try to access the floppy, does it even light up and try to access, or is there no disk activity at all and it just pukes the error... Wish I could help more.. (this message is for the NT system with the FDD problems, NOT the IO...sorry) D2. 02-07-2001 13:01:05

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) ckbone Profile Humor me......I've had a USB floppy working for a long time on my I-Opener. Unless you could get the floppy to boot, which would be a worth-while hack, a non-bootable floppy seems to be of little value.....considering how much trouble this hack is becoming. For the booting ability, it seems to me the easily hooked up cdrom would be the way-to-go. You would only need a modified BIOS....the cdrom part is easy. Is this one of the hacks for hacking sake things? 02-07-2001 16:08:37

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) mp3boombox Profile | Email Just cause i know the rest of you may be intrested in this little tid bit of info. The IBM floppy drive's for the 720 and older modles, maby newer also. Is a standerd FLOPPY drive. Its VERy thin and you can get them in an EXTERNAL case. which just has a MINI 26pin connector and an 8" cable. pins 1,3,5 are +5v For these IBM drives the below list of pins is not totaly acurate because the drives DO not have a pin 27 or higher. it only goes upto 26. BUT the floppy drive only takes 16 wires. one of which is a +5v. I'v got the floppy working BUT I dont have all the wires HOOKED up due to not being able to FIND the frigen pinout on the CONTROLER chip, SOME WIRES go even some wires are ODD most go to the ODD pins. 5529-60 BH9503BKS2 this is all the info on the CHIP 325 137 JAPAN floppy controler drive FD-05HF P/N 09307522-48 S/N 1921458 D9 2. DRVDEN0 -- 4 -- 6 D7 8. -INDEX E9 10 -MTR0 A8 12 -DS1 B8 14 -DS0 C8 16 -MTR1 D8 18 -DIR E8 20 -STEP A7 22 -WDATA B7 24 -WGATE E7 26 -TRK00 A6 28 -WRTPRT B6 30 -RDATA C7 32 -HDSEL C6 34 -DSKCHG 15,17,19,21,23,25, are all GROUND. 02-14-2001 15:15:09

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Wild_Pencil Profile | Email Anyone got the chipset docs, now that free-drive is down? Turbo3 mentioned there's an option to redirect the Floppy over to the Parallel Port, and I'd like to experiment with this.. (save myself from all that soldering.. A Floppy-Booting BIOS is being tested; we should know if it works soon.. -WP 05-30-2001 15:19:15

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) *SF* Profile ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- <wild_pencil@yahoo.com> I have both of these Files, I could Send. I didn't Look to See What they are, Do You Know what You are Looking for ? Datasheet501.pdf Datasheet686a.pdf 05-30-2001 19:18:08

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Wild_Pencil Profile | Email Still experimenting with the Parallel-Floppy option. It *LOOKS* like it's working at this point, because my meter shows a fair amount of voltage difference when I enable Parallel-Floppy (3.3v), and when I disable it (4.25v). Unfortunately, I haven't managed to convince the controller to set either the Floppy Motor-Enable signal or the Floppy-Enabled signal low when I command it via something like Mov DX,03f2 ; FDCBase+2 = FDC Command Mov AL,03Ch ; xx11 1100 = Motor 0 and 1 on, DMA+IRQ Enabled; FDC Enabled; Drive 0 Selected out dx,al So... still no appreciable signs of life from the floppy drive on my lab machine yet. If I ground the pins manually, the drive light comes on as expected. The port insists on maintaining 3.3 volts on these pins regardless of Motor-Status controls sent to the Floppy Controller. I'm guessing I've got to configure the controller a little more (3.3v might be floating "unconfigured" voltages after all), or figure out if there's a pull-up resistor supplying the 3.3 volts. Ah well, I'll figure it out eventually. From the '686a reference, the pinouts would be: Parallel/Floppy(FloppyUsage) 1/unused 2/8(Index#) 3/26(Track 0#) 4/28(Write Protect#) 5/30(Read Data#) 6/34(Disk Change#) 7/unused 8/unused 9/unused 10/12(Drive Select 2#) 11/16(Motor Enable 2#) 12/22(Write Data#) 13/24(Erite Enable#) 14/2(Density Select;DriveN0) 15/32(Head Select) 16/18(Direction) 17/20(Step#) 18-25/1-33 [Odd Pins] (Ground) 07-11-2001 17:35:16

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) *SF* Profile OK, not that I understand all of this, but shouldn't pins 10/12, 11/16, be 10/14, 11/10, because of the twist in the cable ? as shown Here I assume I am Wrong or it Doesn't Matter, (No need to Reply) But I thought I would ask. Thanks for all of Your Time & Effort. * StarFish * 07-12-2001 01:17:17

RE:Floppy Drive (modified 0 times) Wild_Pencil Profile | Email I thought it'd be that way, too.. but from what I understand, floppy drives are wired to respond to "Drive B", while the IOpener controller is transmitting signals for "Drive A". So the pinouts I gave do indeed account for the extra twist so that the IO's "Drive A" signals activate the floppy's "Drive B" pins. On a side note... I did spend a couple of hours trying to figure that out when I manually grounded the motor pin.. most of my floppy drives are pulls from older machines, and I went through 4 of them before I figured it out. *sigh* not good to hack when you're tired. -WP 07-12-2001 13:12:57

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