Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!sun-barr!texsun!letni!merch!cpe!hal6000!trsvax!earl From: earl@trsvax.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: External 3 1/2" Floppy Message-ID: <216100104@trsvax> Date: 28 Jun 89 17:37:00 GMT References: <2323@aecom.yu.edu> Lines: 58 Nf-ID: #R:aecom.yu.edu:2323:trsvax:216100104:000:2902 Nf-From: trsvax.UUCP!earl Jun 28 12:37:00 1989 /* ---------- "Re: External 3 1/2" Floppy" ---------- */ In article <587@megatek.UUCP>, hollen@zeta.megatek.uucp (Dion Hollenbeck) writes: > than 2 floppies. Even though my controller card is set up for 4 > drives, the BIOS will not recognize more than 2. BTW, anybody know > of a BIOS which will recognize 4 floppies? > > I'm not sure if this counts. My Wells-American CompuStar is equipped with 2 3.5" and one each of the 5.25" drives, four in all. The config.sys file contains the Wells' supplied DISKETTE.SYS and the PCDOS-supplied DRIVER.SYS. Together, this, along with the hard drive, takes me to drive F. The IBM BIOS mandates that the hard drive be C. However, the aforementioned device drivers seem to let the additional logical drives actually represent additional physical drives, but again, without the CONFIG.SYS entries, those drives are not recognized. Maybe the answer to the question is that a true IBM compatible BIOS that recognizes 4 drives a priori is impossible, but that the little fact doesn't stop people from actually having four drives through more elaborate schemes... -- Craig Werner (future MD/PhD, 4.5 years down, 2.5 to go) werner@aecom.YU.EDU -- Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1935-14E Eastchester Rd., Bronx NY 10461, 212-931-2517) "Well, do you see the spaghetti?" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Manzanna, has a system where they can let you connect several diskette drives to on machine (3-4-5-6 or more). They normally use a special multiplexor board in series with the FD controller. But on older IBM type machines, they use the external drive cable connector. They have a special "3FIVE.SYS" driver program that allows you to hook up extra drives. For example, on a three floppy and 1 hard disk system with a RAMDISK too; A: and B: are the normal floppies, C: is the hard disk, D: is the ramdisk, and E: becomes the external 3.5" floppy drive. Thus the extra floppy diskette drives go out after the normal diskette drives are used as far as drive names are concerned. If your machine supports it you can use driver.sys and drvparm.sys, etc. and the extra floppy drives would come after your normal system drives. But not everyone's machines support these drivers. *********************************************************************** Earl W. Bollinger @ "You were in the Clone Wars!", said Luke excitedly. "Yes", replied Obi Wan, "I was a DOS programmer. But that was before the dark times, before OS2."