No B: Drive !

[marccunn]

Here is something I found out about my ASUS P4C800 Deluxe motherboard the hard way!

I wanted to transfer a trusty TEAC FD505-100 Dual Floppy Drive (3.5" + 5.25") from one of my old W95 computers to a new computer I just built that has the ASUS and Windows 2000 Advanced Server for the OS. The TEAC uses only one ribbon cable to handle both drives.

I installed the TEAC in the new computer, but when it booted, there was no B: drive! I re-booted and went to the BIOS (v1010) main page. There was no line for a B: drive, just the "Legacy Diskette A" line. I was able to use that line to toggle between the 3.5" and the 5.25" as the A: drive, but I could not figure out how to add a line to the BIOS for a B: drive.

After several hours of changing cables, examining the drive and tinkering with the Computer Management tools in W2kAS, I gave up, and e-mailed ASUS tech support. Here is the surprising answer they sent back within an hour (ASUS has very responsive tech support!):

>[9/23/2003 3:10:00 PM - lee]
>Sir this board will not support to floppy drives, the feature was removed to allow access for the new smartcard readers. >Please do not respond to this email,if you are still in need of assistance contact our techs

I checked through the User Guide, and there is no mention about having a BIOS that doesn't allow for two floppy drives. I don't know what he meant by the reference to the Smartcard readers. I think he may be referring to the fact that there is only one floppy connector on the ASUS. However, I was clear in my e-mail to ASUS that I was only using one floppy connector for both drives, and I was also clear that the TEAC used only one floppy connector in the old computer and the A: and B: drives in that computer worked simultaneously.

I think the problem is in the BIOS, not on the board. Does anyone know how the v1010 BIOS for the P4C800 Deluxe can be tweaked to allow for both the A: and B: drives to work simultaneously, rather than having to toggle between them ?

[Rory]

he spelt two to...says a lot.

[Darkmatter]

Modifying Asus's BIOS is really hard, near impossible unless you work for them. Some people have to gain more advanced features.

Obviously you still need it for whatever reason, but the days of 5.25 died many many years ago. As such old obsolete features are slowly being removed.
Dont quote me, I believe, cant check at the moment but i think Abit boards can deal with two floppy drives.
Only thing i can think of is try and find a floppy controller card, but there again i dont think you can get PCI ones.