Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!iuvax!uxc!deimos!eecea!gordon
From: gordon@eecea.eece.ksu.edu (Dwight Gordon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Three floppies??
Message-ID: <513@eecea.eece.ksu.edu>
Date: 3 Jan 89 14:34:37 GMT
References: <8544@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <1266@ndmath.UUCP>
Reply-To: gordon@eecea.UUCP (Dwight Gordon)
Distribution: na
Organization: Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS USA
Lines: 35

In article <8544@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> you write:
>
>     Is it possible to connect three floppies at the same time?  I'm 
>interested in hooking up two 5 1/4" 1.2M and a 3 1/2" 1.44M drive to my
>computer.  I have a WA2 controller card, but I am uncertain how to 
>physically set it up to accept three drives, if that is possible.

  The original IBM PC/XT had the capability of supporting 4 floppies off
of the single floppy controller card (2 internal + 2 external).  IBM (in its
almighty wisdumb, sic. :-) decided that nobody (?!?) would ever want to do
this, so the AT-class machines can only support 2 floppies with OEM hardware.
This is your case.  In order to (easily :-) add additional floppies to your
system you would have to purchase an "add-on" floppy controller that could
be accessed as a secondary floppy controller on your system.  The hardware
on your current controller will support only two floppies (without EXTENSIVE
hardware modification).

>     If hooking up three drives is possible, how does one go about accessing
>the third drive?  I have a Pheonix BIOS Plus 1.10B2 and it only recognizes
>two floppies.  Someone told me that there is a driver called "driver.sys"
>that allows access to additional floppies.  Is this true?  If not, will I
>have to write my own driver?  I plan on using only DOS if I can get this
>setup to work.

  These secondary controllers (look to Computer Shopper for types and prices)
usually come with device drivers to support the additional hardware.  Whereas
DOS still allows for four floppy drives (my XT-class system has four floppies:
A & B are 720K, and C & D are 360K), the AT-class hardware no longer does.

- Dwight W. Gordon -

Dwight W. Gordon         |   913-532-5600    |   gordon@eecea.eece.ksu.edu
Electrical & Computer Engineering Department |     dwgordon@ksuvm.bitnet
Kansas State University - Durland Hall       | rutgers!ksuvax1!eecea!gordon
Manhattan, KS 66506      | {pyramid,ucsd}!ncr-sd!ncrwic!ksuvax1!eecea!gordon