No B: Drive!

[marccunn]

Here is something I found out about my P4C800 Deluxe the hard way!

I wanted to transfer a trusty TEAC FD505-100 Dual Floppy Drive (3.5" + 5.25") from one of my old W95 computers to a new computer I just built that has the ASUS and Windows 2000 Advanced Server for the OS. The TEAC uses only one ribbon cable to handle both drives.

I installed the TEAC in the new computer, but when it booted, there was no B: drive! I re-booted and went to the BIOS (v1010) main page. There was no line for a B: drive, just the "Legacy Diskette A" line. I was able to use that line to toggle between the 3.5" and the 5.25" as the A: drive, but I could not figure out how to add a line to the BIOS for a B: drive.

After several hours of changing cables, examining the drive and tinkering with the Computer Management tools in W2kAS, I gave up, and e-mailed ASUS tech support. Here is the surprising answer they sent back within an hour (ASUS has very responsive tech support!):

>[9/23/2003 3:10:00 PM - lee]
>Sir this board will not support to floppy drives, the feature was removed to allow access for the new smartcard readers. >Please do not respond to this email,if you are still in need of assistance contact our techs

I checked through the User Guide, and there is no mention about having a BIOS that doesn't allow for two floppy drives. I don't know what he meant by the reference to the Smartcard readers. I think he may be referring to the fact that there is only one floppy connector on the ASUS. However, I was clear in my e-mail to ASUS that I was only using one floppy connector for both drives, and I was also clear that the TEAC used only one floppy connector in the old computer and the A: and B: drives in that computer worked simultaneously.

I think the problem is in the BIOS, not on the board. Does anyone know how the v1010 BIOS for the P4C800 Deluxe can be tweaked to allow for both the A: and B: drives to work simultaneously, rather than having to toggle between them ?

 

[Kazi]

Typical Asus response... with spelling mistakes... thought it's a mirical you got a response at all!

btw, im not claiming to be mr perfect either but "to" is two....

 

[lenjack]

You must have pull...I'm waiting 7 weeks for a response from Asus.

 

[stevennoland]

What is a floppy drive? I heard those things went out with 8-track players, records, and cassetts. Ha Ha. Really, what do you need with a floppy?

 

[pspada]

Asus Asux.

 

[Buz2b]

Originally posted by: pspada
Asus Asux.

Geez pspada, give it a break with the ASUS bashing, will ya?! As to the problem at hand, B drives have been "removed" for some time by most manufacturers. They kind of bit the dust when 5.25" floppies died a quick death. The fact that you can go into the BIOS and switch function from the 3.5 to the 5.25 should be viewed as a plus. I mean, just how many times are you going to need that 5.25" drive anyway? Why not copy anything you have on those disks to either CDr's or regular floppy disks?
IMHO, you are not going to find many "modern" MB's with the capability of using that older technology. Good luck though.

 

[KF]

>There was no line for a B: drive, just the "Legacy Diskette A" line. I was able to use
> that line to toggle between the 3.5" and the 5.25" as the A: drive, but I could not
> figure out how to add a line to the BIOS for a B: drive.

After seeing your post, I thought that 2 floppies might have been "legacied" and I didn't notice. Intel seems to want to legacy everything. I see no reason to drop support for 2 floppies as long as the chipset has a floppy controller, unless possibly Intel eliminated the select lines. When one select line is high, A is selected, when the other is high, B is selected. But support for 2 floppies is still in the BIOS of the brand new DFI NFII Lanparty motherboard I just got. There are two entries to select any type of floppy for A or B. I don't know about the Lanparty in the Intel version.

Unless you have some very special reason for using 5.25 floppies, or even if you do, it is now time to make provisions to access whatever is on them on another medium, while you still can.

>I think the problem is in the BIOS, not on the board.
That may be. But Windows replaces all that stuff, or nearly all, with its own drivers once it boots. Maybe you could do a detection in Device Manager for legacy devices. Or maybe you could force install a driver. It's just an idea; it probably won't work.

> Does anyone know how the v1010 BIOS for the P4C800 Deluxe can
> be tweaked to allow for both the A: and B: drives to work simultaneously, rather
> than having to toggle between them ?

Good luck.

 

[pspada]

Originally posted by: Buz2b

Originally posted by: pspada
Asus Asux.

Geez pspada, give it a break with the ASUS bashing, will ya?! As to the problem at hand, B drives have been "removed" for some time by most manufacturers. They kind of bit the dust when 5.25" floppies died a quick death. The fact that you can go into the BIOS and switch function from the 3.5 to the 5.25 should be viewed as a plus. I mean, just how many times are you going to need that 5.25" drive anyway? Why not copy anything you have on those disks to either CDr's or regular floppy disks?
IMHO, you are not going to find many "modern" MB's with the capability of using that older technology. Good luck though.

I repeat, Asus sucks - not because their products are necessarily bad, but because their tech support and warranty are completely worthless. You could not pay me to sell Asus equipment again.

But to get back on topic, I have 3 or 4 different newer motherboards, as well as having sold 20x that many in the past few months (none Asus, of course!), and each of them support 2 floppies, no problem.