Ah ha. My sentiments exactly. (1) Cheap China USB to floppy adapter, (1) male to male floppy header, (1) floppy cable with 3.5 and 5.25 You just proved that my idea works. Thank you friend.
Have you reproduced these results using one? In my finding, those inexpensive adapters are less likely to work on 5.25" drives. What has been more successful (and still not "perfect") is a set-up using the SMSC floppy controller chip. I do recommend trying a few of those inexpensive ones, because I only have one generic "FDD@1306" model.
In the past I connected a 3inch drive similar, this because a specific machine only accepted 3 inch drives and in order to update a configuration I needed to write to this disc first from my pc, I used a command instruction with the different format option after that xp sp3 was normal reading and writing. Meaning the windows util is more limited than the direct command instruction
If I remember correctly, /F is drive size, /T track/N sectors. Google it to be sure, but I remember I did it from the command prompt using format instruction.
Thanks, that sounds about right. XP has limited format options for 5.25", I think they dropped support after XP SP1(?) in Explorer. You can't choose 1.2 MB from the format modal, etc. I've seen a few comments about copying SP1 floppy drivers to an SP3 install, but I don't feel like trying that just yet. ;) I have been able to format 5.25" from the XP command prompt as you mention with format, and using e.g., /F:1.2 or /F:1200, I forget the syntax for that size OTOH. I've had some luck with specifying tracks and sectors also, like getting a 1.2-MB PC98 format on a USB 3.5" this way. I found a DOS program called fdformat that has some more options, and that's how I got the 1.44-MB format of this 5.25" which then worked on my test USB set-up here. Some other programs complained that e.g., 1.44 MB is not supported on a 5.25" disk.
Ah ha. My sentiments exactly. (1) Cheap China USB to floppy adapter, (1) male to male floppy header, (1) floppy cable with 3.5 and 5.25
You just proved that my idea works. Thank you friend.
Have you reproduced these results using one?
In my finding, those inexpensive adapters are less likely to work on 5.25" drives. What has been more successful (and still not "perfect") is a set-up using the SMSC floppy controller chip. I do recommend trying a few of those inexpensive ones, because I only have one generic "FDD@1306" model.
In the past I connected a 3inch drive similar, this because a specific machine only accepted 3 inch drives and in order to update a configuration I needed to write to this disc first from my pc, I used a command instruction with the different format option after that xp sp3 was normal reading and writing. Meaning the windows util is more limited than the direct command instruction
If I remember correctly, /F is drive size, /T track/N sectors. Google it to be sure, but I remember I did it from the command prompt using format instruction.
Thanks, that sounds about right. XP has limited format options for 5.25", I think they dropped support after XP SP1(?) in Explorer. You can't choose 1.2 MB from the format modal, etc. I've seen a few comments about copying SP1 floppy drivers to an SP3 install, but I don't feel like trying that just yet. ;)
I have been able to format 5.25" from the XP command prompt as you mention with format, and using e.g., /F:1.2 or /F:1200, I forget the syntax for that size OTOH. I've had some luck with specifying tracks and sectors also, like getting a 1.2-MB PC98 format on a USB 3.5" this way.
I found a DOS program called fdformat that has some more options, and that's how I got the 1.44-MB format of this 5.25" which then worked on my test USB set-up here. Some other programs complained that e.g., 1.44 MB is not supported on a 5.25" disk.