Is my BIOS too new for 5.25" floppy?

[kemonoart]

I've been given the task of getting a computer to run a program that requires a 5.25" key disk. The motherboard and thus the BIOS are circa 2003, but the drive is circa <1995, and the software is circa <1992. The BIOS does list 1.2MB 5.25" as an option for floppy for both A: and B:, and I currently have the 5.25" drive set as A: and my 3.5" set B:. That said, the BIOS does not allow for a 360K 5.25" floppy and it does NOT have auto-detect for floppy at all.

Here's the main problem: I boot, the drives boot just fine, no errors. Win98 loads and I can access both drives through Explorer just fine. I can access and read floppies in both drives only until I attempt to do so through the MS-DOS prompt. Then I get a 'General Failure Reading Drive A:' message, specifically with the 5.25" drive. No problems with the 3.5". The program generally requires being run through DOS in some manner, so it is normal to restart in MS-DOS mode and run the .exe file. When I do this, it doesn't seem to read the 5.25" drive at all, and the software fails to access the key disk needed to run the full version. When I attempt to read the contents of any disk in the 5.25" drive, I get that same Genera Failure Reading Drive A: message. I can read from the 3.5" drive without any trouble.

Is it possible that my BIOS is somehow not able to work with my 5.25" drive fully? Why would Win98 Explorer read from it just fine but MS-DOS has a fit? Should I just tell my father (who has put this task in my lap) to just get an older machine that already has a 5.25" drive and to give up trying to make this newer motherboard work?

Thanks in advance,

- Chris

[tezza]

Hi Chris,

If you can't get the floppy working, one alternative might be to explore using Microsoft's Virtual PC, and work with a floppy image of the older software rather than real disks. Would this be feasible for what you want?

Virtual PC is a free download from the Microsoft site. This XP application doesn't deal well which lots of games software which addresses hardware directly (I've found DOS-BOX better for this) but Virtual PC allows you to have a mostly-compatible legacy MS-DOS computer inside your XP machine, and it can boot off 5.25 disk Images.

Of course the problem is getting disk images of your real disks in the first place, but there are lots of free and commecial tools which can allow you to do this. That is providing you have access to at least one machine that has a working 5.25 inch floppy drive in order to capture the image in the first instance.

Tez

[kemonoart]

Thanks for the response Tezza. The one big reason why I have had to go through so much pain in this whole process is because the key disk is one of those where they put holes and other 'intentional errors' onto the disk so that it couldn't be copied. Unless capturing an image of such a disk is possible, I'm stuck needing the drive. I'm also told that the software is very particular about how it is run, hence the attention on DOS and starting it that way.

If I could get the 5.25" drive to work regularly and normally on the machine, I'm certain my problems would be fully resolved, but I can't seem to get the drive to run properly at all on this frankenstein's monster of a machine. Unfortunately, I'm not vintage-tech-savvy enough to know how to do more than just hook everything up and feel my way through setting up the hardware in BIOS.

Would you agree that the best thing to do is to just seek out an old 486 or an early Pentium and be done with it?

[Druid6900]

It would probably be a lot less painful if you're not used to tricking new hardware into performing old tricks.

[Micom 2000]

Just an off the cuff idea is that you might try configuring the BIOS to using A: as the 3.5" drive and B: as the 5.5. It's possibly unimportant but that is how I've always configured my drives on 386 and newer computers. Can't remember why.

Lawrence

[MikeS]

What are the BIOS options? only 3.5/1.4M and 5.25/1.2M?
Is that 5.25 drive 360K DD or 1.2M HD?
Which DOS? W98 DOS box, W98 DOS (7.x), or another version?
What is the software in question? Old enough and abandoned maybe, ao that you could find and use a cracked version that doesn't need the disk?

m

[carlsson]

As a matter of compatibility, I believe the chipset is more important than the date of manufacture. Some more recent chipsets cut down support for old hardware, and of course a brand new computer typically no longer supports floppy drives at all. It is possible that Windows can auto-detect the hardware and bypass BIOS, so if you really have a 360K floppy drive, it would work in Windows 98 but not in MS-DOS which relies on what BIOS reports.

But yes, a slightly older computer is a better bet to make it work. You don't have to step all the way back to 486; most common Pentium II/III should without problems still support 360K 5,25" floppy drives.

[per]

As a matter of compatibility, I believe the chipset is more important than the date of manufacture. Some more recent chipsets cut down support for old hardware, and of course a brand new computer typically no longer supports floppy drives at all. It is possible that Windows can auto-detect the hardware and bypass BIOS, so if you really have a 360K floppy drive, it would work in Windows 98 but not in MS-DOS which relies on what BIOS reports.

But yes, a slightly older computer is a better bet to make it work. You don't have to step all the way back to 486; most common Pentium II/III should without problems still support 360K 5,25" floppy drives.

What you should do if the chipset don't have floppy disk support is to buy an disk-controller/adapter that support floppy disks and is compatible with the system bus. I don't know where to get them, but I am pretty sure they exist.

[hargle]

What is the software in question? Old enough and abandoned maybe, ao that you could find and use a cracked version that doesn't need the disk?
m

I 2nd this.

If this software is old and abandoned enough, I'd be happy to take a look at cracking it for you. key disk protection is sometimes pretty easy to bypass, and even the DMCA pretty much allows us to bypass obsolete protections due to ancient hardware requirements that are no longer supported.

[Trixter]

I've been given the task of getting a computer to run a program that requires a 5.25" key disk. The motherboard and thus the BIOS are circa 2003, but the drive is circa <1995, and the software is circa <1992. The BIOS does list 1.2MB 5.25" as an option for floppy for both A: and B:, and I currently have the 5.25" drive set as A: and my 3.5" set B:. That said, the BIOS does not allow for a 360K 5.25" floppy and it does NOT have auto-detect for floppy at all.


There's a lot of things going on here. First off, your key disk = copy protection, so you can't do this in windows. You must boot to DOS, or at least shut down win98 to ms-dos mode before you try. This is because most sophisticated copy-protection is timing-sensitive and needs the entire machine. If you can, boot directly to MS-DOS mode from a clean boot (ie. don't load windows then shut down windows).

Not to scare you, but some copy-protection requires a low-density drive (they spin at different rates and have different data rates than high-density drives). Even under ideal conditions, you may not be able to get the copy-protection to work with a high-density drive.

Secondly, you should set your BIOS to the type of drive installed. If you have a 5.25" 1.2MB High-density drive, you should set the BIOS to 1.2. If you have a 360KB low-density drive, you should set it to 360K. The BIOS setting must match the hardware, not the disk you're trying to read.

Thirdly, if you are trying to read the disk and getting an error, it is possible the diskette itself is has faded or otherwise become damaged and you are getting a legitimate error, Occam's Razor and all that. Can you read other 5.25" disks in your drive while in DOS, or do they give errors too?

What program are you trying to run? I might have a cracked .exe you can use with the rest of your program disks.

I have a combo 5.25"/3.5" HD drive(s) in my Athlon 4800+ dual-core machine running Windows XP (and Linux, and DOS -- it's a multi-boot machine) and can read everything just fine, so your BIOS and OS are probably not the culprit.

[kemonoart]

Thanks to everyone for all of their input thus far. The software in question is Staad3 version 21, an engineering computation program that does calculations for structural engineering. The disk itself works just fine on another machine that my father uses at home, and he is simply looking for a way to bring it to work (leaving out the reasons why he only has it at home and not at work), and thus the need for the computer that can run the program.

To answer other questions, this Win98 is an unupdated (freshly installed) FE version. The 5.25" drive is a "Teac 5.25" 1.2 Meg FD55-GFR DSHD Floppy Drive" as listed in eBay. The drive reads just fine in Win98, but does not read when in MS-DOS mode after restarting in MS-DOS mode. I don't know what version of MS-DOS is being used by this version of Windows, but it is the version that came with the OS. My BIOS has the following floppy options:

5.25" 1.2MB
3.5" 720K
3.5" 1.44MB
3.5" 2.88MB

The final stipulation is that this particular version of this software is needed because it does certain things a certain way and newer versions of the software don't behave in a manner in which my father is happy with. He has held onto it all these years because of that.

Setting the 5.25" drive to B: instead of A: is going to be difficult due to the fact that the cable isn't really long enough for this medium-sized tower given the location of the connection on the motherboard. I will try it and see whether this has an impact on the results and report back, though we may have to mount the drive onto the side of the case if this solves the problem.

Again, thank you to everyone who has contributed to this discussion, I appreciate all of your help! Will update soon with results.

[carlsson]

So, is the 5.25" drive installed as 1.2MB in BIOS but still doesn't work in DOS? As for swapping drive letters, many modern BIOSes allows you to do that under Advanced BIOS Settings without touching the floppy drive cable. Usually it shouldn't matter which is A or B.

[modem7]

You've got a 1.2MB drive configured in the BIOS as a 1.2MB drive. A 1.2MB drive can read (but not properly write) a 360KB disk. And you're using Windows 98. So you have a hardware/software combination that should be able to read 360KB disks.

I found a recent motherboard (dated 2002) where the BIOS supports 1.2MB drives (and coincidently, not 360KB drives). I connected a hard drive that had Windows 98 SE installed, and connected a Teac FD-55 GFR drive (same as yours) as A: drive. Configured A: in BIOS for 1.2MB, which I'm sure is what you've done.

Results of accessing a 360KB floppy in A: drive:

1. Windows Explorer - Copying files from A: to C: successful. Copied files verified good.
2. DOS box (command prompt) - Copying files from A: to C: successful. Copied files verified good.
3. 'Restart in MS-DOS mode' - Copying files from A: to C: successful. Copied files verified good.
4. I can boot from the 360KB disk in the A: drive.

That is exactly what I expected. Why is the 'Restart in MS-DOS mode' a problem for you? Don't know.

Note that 'Restart in MS-DOS mode' is not the same as booting from a Windows 98 boot disk. With 'Restart in MS-DOS mode', parts of Windows are still running (providing long filename support, etc.).
But you can boot from the A: drive (true DOS - 16 bit floppy drivers) and the drive works in a command box (presumably 32 bit floppy drivers). 'Restart in MS-DOS mode' is kind of between those two, and so why would it fail to read A: for you? 'Restart in MS-DOS mode' runs the file, C:\WINDOWS\EXIT TO DOS.PIF which in turn runs C:\WINDOWS\DOSSTART.BAT It's possible (but unlikely) that DOSSTART.BAT has something it which is causing the problem. Try temporarily renaming DOSSTART.BAT to DOSSTART.REN (or whatever) then try the 'Restart in MS-DOS mode' again.

------------------------------------

Does the key disk have to be in A: ?
If not:

From your first post, the .EXE is a DOS one. And you don't have a problem booting to DOS.
Have you thought about swapping A: and B: so that the 3.5" drive becomes A:
You boot to DOS from the 3.5" drive, put the key disk in B:, and run your .EXE from C: