Re: floppy drive in Win10?

On 2/22/2022 10:48 PM, Robert Baer wrote:
> JJ wrote:
>> On Tue, 15 Feb 2022 00:15:39 -0800, Robert Baer wrote:
>>>      Does Windows 10 support floppy drives at all?
>>>
>>>      Google was of no help.
>>>      How can this be fixed?
>>>
>>>           Thanks
>>
>> It still include a floppy disk driver, so it does and should support it.
>>
>> Is the device not detected at all in Device Manager? Not even as an unknown
>> device?
>>
>     Device manager lists it "This device is working properly".
> 
>     Since the floppy drive does not work, the device manager is a liar.
> 
>        Thanks.   R. Baer

Resend:

Let's look at the interface for the moment. Yes, it's prehistoric,
from when dino-babies were born.

   1..33   | GND     Interleaved ground for SI

   2       | /DCD    Disk Change Detect
   4       | /DS4    Drive selct 4 (Not always supported)
   6       | /INUSE  Open collector LED driver
   8       | /IND    Index
  10       | /DS0    Drive select 0
  12       | /DS1    Drive select 1
  14       | /DS2    Drive select 2
  16       | /MTRON  Motor enable
  18       | /DIR    Direction select
  20       | /STEP   Head step          <== stepper
  22       | /WDAT   Write data
  24       | /WGAT   Write gate
  26       | /TRK0   Track 0            <== step backwards until it hits the stop
  28       | /WPT    Write protect
  30       | /RDAT   Read data          <== analog signal from head, to FDC controller
  32       | /S1     Side select
  34       | /RDY    Ready/Disk change depending on drive configuration

What you should notice, is the lack of PNP (Plug and Play).

Unless the drive "makes a noise", it might not be possible
to tell anything is there.

There is no processor. No firmware. No SPI or SMBUS or things of
that nature. It's as dumb as a post.

*******

The PNP comes from the SuperIO FDC controller logic block.
Device Manager knows now, you have a SuperIO. A driver is
loaded to talk to the SuperIO FDC block. That's what Windows 10
Device Manager is telling you. It's telling you "job half done, son".

We *still* don't know two things:

1) Floppy cable connected and flipped the correct way ?
    Installing the cable 180  rotated, causes the LED to stay on
    and the heads to stay loaded. You will still hear a noise
    if you install it backwards.

2) Is the Power cable connected ?

You typically might see an Error 40, a Seek Error or the like,
as the driver tries to steer the head to the stop and test for
presence. If the wiring is correct, there will be no error,
and the drive will still make noises.

The Index signal might also help, if media was loaded.

*******

When the machine starts, do you hear *any* sounds coming from the drive ?

Usually there are seek attempts during the startup sequence. In the BIOS,
there may be a setting or two for the floppy. My now-dead Core2 machine,
had some sort of "seek" test at BIOS level (since it actually can boot
from the floppy). Even the BIOS must do the extra work, to ascertain the
drive is actually cabled up to the SuperIO.

A quick test of sanity on the dead Core2 machine, was to insert
my "memtest" floppy and boot into memtest. If that fails, check wiring.
If the test passes, it's back to Windows you go.

And we'll assume you did not get this floppy drive at a swap
meet or a distress sale, and "it used to work". There is more than
one kind of floppy. In the BIOS, there can even be a "flavor" selector.

    Paul