Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!fciva!rlh
From: rlh@fciva.FRANKLIN.COM (Ramon L. Holt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: External 3 1/2" Floppy
Summary: tried this but blew controller card!!!
Keywords: Leading Edge screwed up
Message-ID: <482@fciva.FRANKLIN.COM>
Date: 26 Jun 89 19:55:00 GMT
References: <3007@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
Reply-To: rlh@fciva.UUCP (Ramon L. Holt)
Distribution: na
Organization: Franklin Capital Investments, Inc. McLean, Va.
Lines: 61

In article <3007@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> burkett@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Edward W Burkett) writes:
>I have a Leading Edge Model D with the following installed:
>
>640 K
>2400 baud modem
>5 1/4 in. floppy
>30 meg Seagate HD
>DOS 3.2
>
>What I would like to do is add an EXTERNAL 3 1/2 in. drive.
>The question is HOW?
>
>1)  The LE only has two connectors on the power supply.
>       1 - for the HD
>       1 - for the 3 1/4 in floppy
                   ^^^
   I'll assume that 3 should be a 5.

The 3.5 inch external drive and controller card that I tried to put 
into one of our LE's came with a power connector that looped into the 
existing floppy power plug.  Such that you plugged power connector 
that normally goes into the 5 1/4 drive into the 3.5 controller card 
and the 3.5 controller card had a cord that then plugged into the 5 1/4 
drive completing the loop.  So both cards and drives are installed.
 
>2)  The LE has the floppy controller built into the mother board.
>       Will that controller work or do I need another?

The 3.5 drive I have came with a half length controller card.

I did the same thing with the controller card that I did with the
power connector.  I took the controller ribbon cord that went from the 
motherboard to the 5 1/4 drive and put it on the 3.5 controller card 
and took the ribbon cord that came with my 3.5 controller card and 
plugged that into the 5 1/4 drive, completing the loop.

This same hookup works no problems on my AST Premium 286, so that is how I
tried it on the LE. 

But I could never get DOS to boot on the LE this way. It would newer find
a drive to boot off of (I think). We tried a couple of different wire 
combinations like putting in the 5 1/4 ribbon first then the 3.5 controller
instead of the other way around.  Finally, we gave up and pulled all the 
stuff off and every other time it booted we would get a memory parity error.
And when we tried to run different programs the error would show up and
halt the program, so we called our service people (who dred the day they
contracted with us to service all our machines, including the LE's).

The service people took it to the shop and said it was a controller 
card problem; swapped that out and brought it back and it still didn't 
work. So its been in service for about two months now and we have 
essentially written it off.

I hate LE's!

My advice would be to get someone who can guarentee their work to do it, or
get original LE parts and a good installation manual.
-- 
Ramon L. Holt				Franklin Mortgage Capital Corp.
(703) 448-3300				7900 Westpark Drive, Suite A-130
uunet!fciva!rlh				McLean, Virginia  22102