Abit boards supporting two FDDs

[SLATYE]

It seems that Abit is now the only company that still supports two floppy drives on some of their boards; all the other companies (so far I've checked Gigabyte, Asus, Asrock, J&W, Foxconn, ECS, MSI, and Biostar) only allow you to define A: in the BIOS (no B: option).

My question is: which of the relatively new Abit boards do support this? With other companies I can just download the instruction manual and have a look in there, but Abit doesn't seem to have made manuals available for most of their new boards. I'm pretty sure (based on old versions of the manuals) that the IP35, IP35-E, IP35 Pro, and IX38-QuadGT all had the required BIOS options. Has this been continued with the IX48-GT3 and the IP43?

I know that Abit's about to stop making mainboards, and so buying anything from them now is a bit risky, but I can't find any other boards that fit the requirements. Both of those boards are also extremely cheap now (in Australia) - they're close to 50% cheaper than anything else using the same chipset.

[Funkstar]

Could you not just use an external USB FDD instead?

Why do you need two FDDs anyway? for the life of me I can't work it out

[DavidM]

Depends on the software he's using .. some of the software written in *real* assembler language won't recognise USB based controllers.

I had this trouble with an ancient package a few years back

[Funkstar]

Good point. That would be a complete pain in the neck.

[SLATYE]

There's no particularly good reason for using two drives; it's really just because I like the idea of keeping the current drives (5.25" + 3.5" combo unit) with a quad-core system.

It's not going to be a deciding factor in choosing a mainboard, but with the current prices the Abit boards are already very attractive. If they happen to support two FDDs as well, that'll be enough to make me buy one.

Does anyone here have one of those boards? They seem pretty rare.

[SLATYE]

Well, I'm now just looking at the IX48 GT3; I figure that if I'm going to get one of the last Abit boards, it might as well be a top-end one. Would anyone with one of those be willing to have a quick look in the BIOS (or the manual) to see if it has the relevant options?

[ChiefZeke]

I got an ABIT IX-48 GT3 about a month ago. The manual shows the BIOS can have two floppys connected.

But, I have a combination 3½/5¼ floppy hooked up and only the 3½ shows in the BIOS and in Explorer. I know the drive works because I just moved it from my system with an ABIT IC7 MAX 3 motherboard to the IX48 GT3 and it worked in the IC7.

The board came with BIOS 11 installed and, as far as I knw, no other BIOS update has been posted.

[SLATYE]

Okay, that's a bit annoying. It suggests that whoever wrote the manual for the board just copied that section from the manual for another board, without checking that it still applies.

Thanks very much for the info. At least it means I can stop debating whether to get an IX48-GT3 and just start saving up for an i7 system instead.