I forgot how to do it...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ed Cregger
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E

Ed Cregger

I'm trying to add a spare 3.5" diskette drive to my old AMD 333 MHz K6-2
computer and I'm not having any luck at getting drive B recognized.

IIRC, there was a trick to it, but it has been too many years since I have
done it. Could anyone help me figure this one out? TIA

PS: the bios isn't seeing B drive.

Ed Cregger
 
Have you indicated in the bios that you have a 3.5" diskette drive on B? The
bios does not automatically find it.
 
Ed said:
I'm trying to add a spare 3.5" diskette drive to my old AMD 333 MHz K6-2
computer and I'm not having any luck at getting drive B recognized.

IIRC, there was a trick to it, but it has been too many years since I have
done it. Could anyone help me figure this one out? TIA

PS: the bios isn't seeing B drive.

Ed Cregger
Click to expand...

Go to the general BIOS settings and enable it.
 
Jan Alter said:
Have you indicated in the bios that you have a 3.5" diskette drive on B?
The
bios does not automatically find it.
Click to expand...


I was in the bios and ran Auto Detect. It found drive A, but would not see
drive B. I didn't see any other way to tell it anything, if you know what I
mean. I could have missed something.

Wasn't there something about the cable? I remember something vaguely about
that from my long ago XT days, but can't get it to come to the forefront of
my memory.

Ed Cregger
 
Ed said:
I was in the bios and ran Auto Detect. It found drive A, but would not see
drive B. I didn't see any other way to tell it anything, if you know what I
mean. I could have missed something.

Wasn't there something about the cable? I remember something vaguely about
that from my long ago XT days, but can't get it to come to the forefront of
my memory.

Ed Cregger
Click to expand...

The standard floppy cable has a twist in it between the two floppy
connectors that reverses the select lines, so there's no need to change
select jumpers on the floppy (and many have it soldered in because of that)
so you just plug them in and the one on the end will be A and the other
will be B.
 
Ed said:
I'm trying to add a spare 3.5" diskette drive to my old AMD 333 MHz K6-2
computer and I'm not having any luck at getting drive B recognized.

IIRC, there was a trick to it, but it has been too many years since I have
done it. Could anyone help me figure this one out? TIA

PS: the bios isn't seeing B drive.
Click to expand...

As well it may not. Many systems have eliminated support in the BIOS for
a second floppy drive. Your board is old enough that there *may* still
be support for a second floppy but maybe not.

Assuming that your BIOS still supports a second floppy, you need a
floppy cable with a second set of connectors for the second floppy drive.

Good luck.

John
 
John P. Dearing said:
As well it may not. Many systems have eliminated support in the BIOS for a
second floppy drive. Your board is old enough that there *may* still be
support for a second floppy but maybe not.

Assuming that your BIOS still supports a second floppy, you need a floppy
cable with a second set of connectors for the second floppy drive.

Good luck.

John
Click to expand...


Thanks, John.

Since posting the original article, I have switched the cables around in
endless combinations. Twist on A, Twist on B, inverted plug in both ways and
the bios is just no seeing the B drive. I think that you hit it on the head.
The bios isn't going to let me do it.

I didn't know that they had dropped that capability, but that sure does
explain why it doesn't show up in the bios regardless of how I arrange
things. Oh well, I guess I just have a spare A drive should I need one.

Thanks to all that answered. Much appreciated.

Ed Cregger
 
David Maynard said:
The standard floppy cable has a twist in it between the two floppy
connectors that reverses the select lines, so there's no need to change
select jumpers on the floppy (and many have it soldered in because of
that) so you just plug them in and the one on the end will be A and the
other will be B.
Click to expand...

Thanks, David.

Unfortunately, regardless of how I switch the cables around, the bios isn't
recognizing drive B. I even switched positions to verify that the B drive
was working by setting it up as A drive, and it worked.

Oh well. I guess I have a spare A drive, should the original cease working.

Ed Cregger
 
Ed said:
Thanks, David.

Unfortunately, regardless of how I switch the cables around, the bios isn't
recognizing drive B. I even switched positions to verify that the B drive
was working by setting it up as A drive, and it worked.
Click to expand...

Bummer. Well, I suppose it's possible it doesn't support a B drive but you
said it was an AMD 333 MHz K6-2 machine and that certainly isn't a 'new'
motherboard.

What motherboard is it?
 
If you have a zip drive in that thing, make sure it is not jumpered
to the "A" setting. That will hide the B-drive.

johns
 
I may be wrong, but the Auto detect feature that I've seen on most
computers only applied to the hard drives. All floppies had to be set
manually in the bios.

Go to the bios where it shows the floppy drives. If it shows only one
floppy, then that's all the bios supports. If it shows floppy A as a
1.44 floppy and floppy B as not installed, then key down to it and
change it manually with the appropriate keys, usually pgup/pgdwn or
+/- keys.

Hope this helps

Joe
 
I'm trying to add a spare 3.5" diskette drive to my old AMD 333 MHz K6-2
computer and I'm not having any luck at getting drive B recognized.

IIRC, there was a trick to it, but it has been too many years since I have
done it. Could anyone help me figure this one out? TIA

PS: the bios isn't seeing B drive.

Ed Cregger
==========================
Click to expand...

You may think that this is a dumb question but did you connect the
power plug to the drive?

Jack
 
Joe said:
I may be wrong, but the Auto detect feature that I've seen on most
computers only applied to the hard drives. All floppies had to be set
manually in the bios.

Go to the bios where it shows the floppy drives. If it shows only one
floppy, then that's all the bios supports. If it shows floppy A as a
1.44 floppy and floppy B as not installed, then key down to it and
change it manually with the appropriate keys, usually pgup/pgdwn or
+/- keys.

Hope this helps

Joe
Click to expand...


Well, it automatically finds drive A...

But I'll give it another look. Thanks.

Ed Cregger
 
You are correct, Jan.

Thanks.

Ed Cregger


Jan Alter said:
Have you indicated in the bios that you have a 3.5" diskette drive on B? The
bios does not automatically find it.

--
Jan Alter
(e-mail address removed)12.pa.us
or
(e-mail address removed)
Click to expand...
 
I had to change it in the bios myself. It did not detect automatically as
others have said it would not. Thanks everyone.

Ed Cregger
 
You are correct, Joe. Thanks.

Ed Cregger


Joe said:
I may be wrong, but the Auto detect feature that I've seen on most
computers only applied to the hard drives. All floppies had to be set
manually in the bios.

Go to the bios where it shows the floppy drives. If it shows only one
floppy, then that's all the bios supports. If it shows floppy A as a
1.44 floppy and floppy B as not installed, then key down to it and
change it manually with the appropriate keys, usually pgup/pgdwn or
+/- keys.

Hope this helps

Joe
Click to expand...
 
John P. Dearing said:
As well it may not. Many systems have eliminated support in the BIOS for
a second floppy drive. Your board is old enough that there *may* still
be support for a second floppy but maybe not.

Assuming that your BIOS still supports a second floppy, you need a
floppy cable with a second set of connectors for the second floppy drive.

Good luck.

John
Click to expand...


I have that cable. Thanks, John. I figured it out. I did have to manually
enable it in the bios.

Ed Cregger
 
I too am interested in the mb that you've got at this point. A couple of
years ago I had a nice Abit KT7/Raid mb, with one exception. I couldn't get
it to boot from a CD-ROM, even though the bios listed the CD-ROM as a first
boot choice. I flashed the bios with 4 different versions and nothing
changed the situation until I tried the very last version made for the mb.
The thing booted from the XP disk I put in it for the first time.
I'm wondering if there were any bios updates made for your mb and what
possible fixes were included in them. It might be worth a look after you
find out what bios version you have.
 
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