Question on floppy cable

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jethro
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Jethro

Is the floppy drive cable considered IDE? Reason I ask is whether it
is concerned with the so-called IDE controller in my BIOS.

Thanks

jethro
 
Jethro said:
Is the floppy drive cable considered IDE? Reason I ask is whether it
is concerned with the so-called IDE controller in my BIOS.
Click to expand...



No the floppy drive is not on an IDE channel
 
Jethro said:
Is the floppy drive cable considered IDE? Reason I ask is whether it
is concerned with the so-called IDE controller in my BIOS.

Thanks

jethro
Click to expand...

The floppy interface is not IDE. The floppy connects to the Super I/O
chip. IDE disks connect to the Southbridge, or in the case of modern
motherboards, a separate chip (as IDE has been discontinued on some
chipsets, requiring a separate chip for the needed function).

The floppy pinout here, suggests the interface is serial (one wire
carries the data). The floppy is considered separately from the IDE
interfaces, by the BIOS.

http://www.bbdsoft.com/floppy.html

The IDE pinout shows sixteen data bits, and is a parallel interface.
(Scroll down to the pinout section.) When an 80 wire cable is used,
40 of the wires are grounded, while the other 40 are associated with
the connectors. The addition of 40 ground wires, to make an 80 wire
cable, improves the signal quality, and makes the higher ATA transfer
rates possible. The other 40 wires, have the functions listed in the
pinout table.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EIDE

In terms of the tradition of BIOS designs, the only IDE to be
prominently listed on the BIOS setup screen, are the IDE interfaces
of the Southbridge. With the current mix of PATA and SATA interfaces
on Southbridges, either type of those drives on the Southbridge, can
appear in the traditional disk setup page.

IDE interfaces on chips which are totally separate from the Southbridge,
are handled by the separate BIOS module include for that chip. The
separate BIOS module will emit a few lines during POST, commenting on
what it has "detected". If the BIOS module for the separate chip supports
RAID, sometimes it will also include a RAID setup screen, which is
triggered by a special key combination during POST.

Paul
 
Is the floppy drive cable considered IDE? Reason I ask is whether it
is concerned with the so-called IDE controller in my BIOS.

Thanks

jethro
Click to expand...

As others have stated, the floppy drive is not IDE. With only one
exception I know about: superfloppies (LS120). they are a special
drive that take 120mb disks, but can also read and write floppy disks.
These ARE IDE. If you have a compaq presario in the right generation,
you MIGHT have one.
 
As others have stated, the floppy drive is not IDE. With only one
exception I know about: superfloppies (LS120). they are a special
drive that take 120mb disks, but can also read and write floppy disks.
These ARE IDE. If you have a compaq presario in the right generation,
you MIGHT have one.
Click to expand...

I take it the LS120 was like compaq's version of the zip disk ?

Chris
 
I take it the LS120 was like compaq's version of the zip disk ?

Chris
Click to expand...

It was a competitor to the Zip at the time. Made by Imation (?).
Compaqs are almost the only computers that came with them pre-
installed. Of course, the units could be purchased separately. The
disks look almost exactly like a floppy, except for the funny shaped
stainless steel slide.
 
It was a competitor to the Zip at the time. Made by Imation (?).
Compaqs are almost the only computers that came with them pre-
installed. Of course, the units could be purchased separately. The
disks look almost exactly like a floppy, except for the funny shaped
stainless steel slide.
Click to expand...

I never bought one but I thought they had a big advantage of the
IOMEGA Zip drives.
They could take floppies.. and i'm not sure if they could also fit a
bit more on a floppy too.
read the first paragraph here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperDisk

The IOMEGA Zip drive and LS120 were around when CDRWs were around. But
opening up nero to burn a CD was a bit of a hassle compared to
convenience of a floppy disk. So people used these devices for
regular saving onto storage. And CDs more rarely, maybe for backup.

I guess now people use USB Keys isntead of floppies, and that is the
competitor that has mostly caused floppy drives to die out.. Though
unfortunately, not all BIOSs support booting from USB.. So people go
through the hassle of making CD-Rs e.g. in Nero.. Maybe now they do
all support booting off USB but if so then its taken years! I still
install floppy drives, though maybe many MBRDs now may not support
them - though perhaps that means more chance of it having the option
to boot off USB!
 
I never bought one but I thought they had a big advantage of the
IOMEGA Zip drives.
Click to expand...

Not really. They're dirt slow when compared to Zips (which is saying
something :) ) . They read around 2x the speed of a regular floppy
disk. Painful if you want to put something big on them.

They could take floppies.. and i'm not sure if they could also fit a
bit more on a floppy too.
Click to expand...


I've not tried overstuffing floppies, the things are unreliable enough
without the added stability issues caused by cramming more bytes/inch
on the medium. The 2.88MB floppy drives were a joke. And then there
are the obvious compatibility issues.
 
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