Travelmate 312T floppy problems...

[Magicthyse]

Hi. A friend asked me this question, and I don't know either, so I am turning to you - the global alliance of Anandtechers - as I frequently do, so I can look to my friends like the tech god that I very nearly am

He has a Acer Travelmate 312T. The floppy disk has broken on it - it attached to the parallel port on the laptop(!) The disk is one of those slim ones and he's not had much luck finding a replacement. The drive has broken just when he was halfway through reinstalling the OS - so he's buggered until he can find a floppy.

He's wondering if a USB floppy disc drive will work on it. Anyone have an answer? Would help him not to waste £50...

 

[Zepper]

USB floppy won't work for installing OS because Win has to be running before the drivers will work. The only low-level USB support in the BIOS is for basic mouse and kbd functions. For everything else, the drivers load in the OS. I had a parallel port LS-120 drive that would work with DOS drivers, so you could use that to install an OS, but I haven't seen one of those in ages. There also used to be kits that would allow you to convert any relatively slow IDE device to an external parallel port device, but I haven't seen any of those lately either. I'm guessing his OS CD isn't bootable??? Well, good luck.
.bh.


Edit:
P.S. Here' your local Acer service center:

Poyle Road, Colnbrook, Slough, Berkshire, SL3 0QX, England

Tel: +44 (0)1753 699-200
Fax: +44 (0)1753 699-201
http://www.acer.co.uk/
Email: euro_mail@acer-euro.com
Technical Helpline: If calling from UK : 0207 365 2486
If calling from Southern Ireland : 01 40732 14

 

[Magicthyse]

Thanks for that. I told him to call Acer as well but he wanted a quick DIY solution...