3 mode floppy with XP

Hey guys I have an Old Japanese Bender that uses a 3 mode floppy drive for storing the bend programs. This is a proprietary non Windows system. But program back up is a pain staking process and I want to try and allow backing up on a Windows XP system.

The problem is the floppy drive 3 mode and the format used is unknown. We use 1.44mb 3.5" disks but I dont know a 1.44mb could be used for say a 720K format. Here is the specs on the current drive.

Description: 3.5,M/1.6M/1.44MB/1.2MB/720K,INT
Customs Code:84717020
Condition:Refurbished,tested and re-certified.Meets or exceeds original quality.
Comment:This is a genuine, original part.
Warranty:7 days from the receipt of goods.
Enclosure Type Internal
Interface Floppy (IDC)
Platform PC
Technical Features Capacity 1.44 MB,2.8MB,360MB,720KB,1MB,640KB
System Requirements
Operating System Microsoft DOS ? Microsoft Windows 3.1 ? Microsoft Windows 95 ? Microsoft Windows NT
3.5" floppy disk drives Supported Media:3 modes of Full Read/Write Compatibility across the 2.0MB,.6MB,.0MB capacities. Package Contents:This product is sold in bulk packaging. System Requirements:IBM PC or compatible system Floppy disk drive interface cable,Available 3.5" drive bay

I have found a driver that is suppose to allow a 3 mode floppy drive to be used in XP. And I have read about having to go into BIOS to allow a 3 mode floppy,but I dont know if that is going to depend on if the tower I would try to used has a motherboard to support this or not. But I am also going to try and get my handson a old Laptop with windows 95 0r 98 on it.

The question is :
1. Do you guys know of any 3 mode floppies you have used in the field in a situation like this?

2. And are there any External USB versions available to use with the laptop? And if so how would this change the game as far as configuring windows XP,98 0r 95 to play nice with a 3 mode floppy drive?

Any insight?

Thankx

We used to make 720K floppies out of 1.44 by taping over the hole. That way, the PC senses it as a 720K. What size are you formatting? The specs are fine, but what is the actual use?

FWIW, there used to be some weird floppy copiers available, that would let you ::ahem:: copy licensed disks that had data on a half-track that a PC wouldn't normally read. I doubt any of those are still around. I suspect you can copy it with Windows, unless your operating system does a strange format on the disk, which wouldn't surprise me.

OK, so I have a bit too much time on my hands this evening, but a bit of Googling found these:

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/format-720k-floppy-t2801862.html

http://download.cnet.com/3-mode-Floppy-Disk-Controller/3000-2122_4-171909.html

This might be a longer-term solution:

http://embeddedsw.net/EMUFDD_Floppy_Hardware_Emulator_Home.html


-rpoet

rpoet said:

This might be a longer-term solution:

http://embeddedsw.net/EMUFDD_Floppy_Hardware_Emulator_Home.html


-rpoet

Click to expand...

Thankx,but this company is the cheapest on the planet. I know the quality guy tried something like this out without success,so they likely will not go for it. We have a machine that is very picky about what hard ware it will play nice with.

tomalbright said:

We used to make 720K floppies out of 1.44 by taping over the hole. That way, the PC senses it as a 720K. What size are you formatting? The specs are fine, but what is the actual use?

FWIW, there used to be some weird floppy copiers available, that would let you ::ahem:: copy licensed disks that had data on a half-track that a PC wouldn't normally read. I doubt any of those are still around. I suspect you can copy it with Windows, unless your operating system does a strange format on the disk, which wouldn't surprise me.

Click to expand...

Well we are using standard 1.44mb floppys but I do not know what its formatting to. Its a CNC type of machine and it gives no information on the format type. The manufacturer was un helpfull and could only tell us that this machine uses a obsolete 3 mode floppy drive. When I try to read it in windows,windows wants to format it. I dont even know if windows will read it after getting the 3 mode floppy to play nice with windows.

At this point I just need someone that know more about the format type to look at the OEM floppy drive specs above and tell me a 3mode floppy drive they think would be a good try.

BryanG said:

OK, so I have a bit too much time on my hands this evening, but a bit of Googling found these:

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/format-720k-floppy-t2801862.html

http://download.cnet.com/3-mode-Floppy-Disk-Controller/3000-2122_4-171909.html

Click to expand...

I have read both of these,thankx. Going to be a matter of finding the right floppy drive and machine that supports 3 mode floppy in the BIOS. Then I will have to see if I can get it to work with XP or if I have to go to an older version of Windows. Then I still dont know if windows will read the floppy because I have no idea what this Japanese machine format is.

If it is an old machine it might use the CPM format. Similar to what Siemens used for early S5, they used 720k disks and couldn't be read by dos or windows. Although there are I believe programs to convert/read these disks.

I think it's not really the BIOS that is needed to support some disk format. it's the drive and the software. while back I have been fooling around with 22disk, a software to work with cp/m diskettes. We had a welding robot which uses this disks and at some point I was able to read some of the info on the disks but didn't get the opportunity to get to the bottom of it. I know we had a bad diskdrive on the system we replaced with a standard one, so I think most diskdrives are the same, it's just a matter of what the software programs them in what way the disk needs to be read/written (how they are really formatted).
for example we used standard 720K disks but they were used as something completely different. around 400K but don't remember correctly.

good luck

edit:
I checked my software back-up collection(...) it helps my memory... next to 22disk I also came across Anadisk, also from Sydex. It can analyze the format of your disk... I know I used it but don't ask me how it works, too long ago. they're both DOS programs. maybe today there's other software for it but I doubt that a little bit.

Ok, I just tried it, and my "SmartDisk FDUSB-TM2" USB floppy will format a 1.44M to 720K (by taping over the hole) in Win XP.