3.5" drive on the UNIXpc - Instructions

[Darren Friedlein]

Here's how to get an 800K 3.5" drive working on a UNIXpc.  The process
should be similar for the 1.6M drive, but I'll confirm that in a few
days and re-post.

(With 1.6M disks, you only have to change disks 1/4th as often and these
disks are smaller)

First, get a Toshiba FDD4216G0K or comperable drive (FDD4202A0K should
work).  The following jumper settings apply to the Toshiba drives, so
some modifications may be needed for other 3.5" drives.

Set the DS (Drive Select) jumper on the bottom to "1" (new system --
DS0 on older drives).  Next, make sure the jumper at the back of the
drive is set to "RDY."

Next, get a drive conversion kit to conver the 3.5" connectors to
5.25".  For the Toshiba, this is something called '3 1/2" Floppy Disk
Drive Universal Intallation [for ND352]'.  The jumper on the card must
be set to B.

Now get a long floppy drive cable.  The best way to get the right cable
is to go to your local computer store and ask for an AT floppy drive
cable for one drive.  Be sure to ask for a "straight through" cable as
a cable with a twist will require you to move the DS jumpers on your
drives up one.

Next is the hard part... find an extension cable for the power cable.
You may have to get this specially made.  A last alternative is to
splice a foot or two of wire between where the power connector meets
the motherboard and where it meets the drive.

Now take the 5.25" drive out of your UNIXpc and pull the power cable
and I/O cable outside the case.  Put the 3.5" and 5.25" drives in a
case if you have one.  You will have to connect the cables to the drive
you want to use.

Now the hardware is taken care of....

Run the shell archive posted in unix-pc.sources through sh and move all
the files starting with MD into the /usr/lib/iv.

You're set!  To format the disk at 800K, enter

$ iv -i /dev/rfp020 /usr/lib/iv/MD10Lnl

A new version of fffc (Flexible Floppy Formatter and Coppier) is also
included in the shell archive that lets you work with the 3.5" disks.

Now a couple requests.  First, a program to format 3.5" disks in MSDOS
format for portability and secondly, a version of Mtools that take
advantage of this format (the current version may work, I don't have
a formatted disk to try this with).

Lastly, if someone has trouble finding any of the hardware, call or
write me and I'll see what I can do.

-darren
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  _____|_____     Darren G. Friedlein      data (bacchus) : 919/596-7746
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