in search of the 5 1/4-inch floppy drive

[sandbox]

Gunug, just as I thought, on the lever issue, but I needed to ask, it's been some years.

There is no recognition in the Bios, that's why I went to the "Install New Hardware" thinking that it might install the needed driver.

The cable I'm using is yours, the "motherboard 34 pin port" that I'm using is the one that the 3.5 floppy was plugged into. There were no extra ports on the motherboard.

I thought I could just pull the 3.5 floppy-drive out and replace it with the 5.25, boot it, see the 5.25 or add a driver, and then begin to pull the data off of the 5.25 floppies onto the hard drive.

The Compaq is not online, but I could network it to my iBook over the phone line, dial-up the preset number and transfer the data to the iBook modem where I could Toast the data onto a CD. I've done this transfer in the past but on different machines. There's an old "serial port" and "printer port" on the Compaq, but I don't know if I have any adapters to a Firewire, Ethernet, or USB.

In the event that the phone-line connection doesn't work, I can just reconnect the 3.5 floppy-drive, transfer the data to 3.5 floppies and Toast the data to CD's on my G3.

What I need is a driver, or at least a name of one that will work, can you see the driver that was being used on the IBM? Windows 98 has a larger driver package than 95 but some 95 machines came with a 5.25 floppy drive so there should be some drivers somewhere that could be useful.

L8r

[Gregg]

QUOTE(gunug @ Sep 7 2007, 09:02 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Burning CD's generally involves more steps than just saving files.  You can develop a routine that makes it fairly transparent but it's never just as simple.

So a "drag and drop" to a Zip disk is much easier, eh? Kind of what I figured.

But, what about multiple burns? Do you have to include everything that was on the CD along with the new stuff? In other words, does a new burn overwrite what was on there?

[gunug]

Sandbox - Does the Compaq have a bootable hard drive; I think you said somewhere here that you had Windows 98 on it so I assume that it does.  When I had that cable plugged into a computer here it wouldn't work properly with both the 3-1/2" and 5-1/4" drives hooked up; it kept on saying that the 5-1/4" had no media in it or that door was open.  I powered it down; unplugged the 3-1/2" drive and powered the thing back up and booted Win98 off the hard drive again and it worked and I could format and write to disks at that point.  Presumably I could have easily have read data off a different disk if it were for a PC.  

There is something here about the Compaq Deskpro's which might be pertinent:

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-6349-1054934.html

Gregg - CDR/W disks generally are completely "erased" before being rerecorded but they can be partially rewritten with specific packet-type software at lower capacity; I've done this with PC software but not with anything like TOAST.  Mostly I use CD-ROM's instead for backups of data that are at least semi-permanent and unchangable

[Gregg]

So, are flash drives the "new removable media"?

I've never used one before. Does it behave like a disk would? That is, it pops up on your desktop and you just drag whatever you need to save to it and it gets added to what's already there, or overwrites a file of the same name. (?)

[gunug]

Under OS X they just mount on the desktop and look like a disk drive (well the icon is often a little more generic).  I have one brand that has what's called U3 technology so that it maps 2 partitions: one the disk drive and the other a CD ROM analog that is meant to be write protected and can hold special utilities.  This other partition usually isn't used much on MAC's (although some people are experimenting with that) but rather on XP machines where it will automount and run a special menu system.  I have probably used one of these under OS 9 but it's been a year or two so I hope someone else can talk about how they work there!

[Gregg]

Thanks for the info. I don't have a USP connection on my G3. I'm just thinking of the future.
Some day....

[LR827]

QUOTE(Gregg @ Sep 7 2007, 12:13 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

QUOTE(gunug @ Sep 7 2007, 09:02 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Burning CD's generally involves more steps than just saving files.  You can develop a routine that makes it fairly transparent but it's never just as simple.

So a "drag and drop" to a Zip disk is much easier, eh? Kind of what I figured.

But, what about multiple burns? Do you have to include everything that was on the CD along with the new stuff? In other words, does a new burn overwrite what was on there?

I have CD-RW discs, 15" PB 10.3.9, and I have NEVER been successful at "rewriting" anything on a CD. I simply buy the cheapest batches of regular CD-R's and burn a new one for occasional updated information.

I know that is stupid and I'm doing something wrong, but it just didn't seem worth the time to worry about it. Now I'm wondering if someone on this string can tell me the proper steps to re-write a burned CD?

And, Gregg, yes, dragging to a Zip disk is very easy. I bought a cheap used external one and it works fine.

I'd still like, someday, to figure out how to re-write a CD-RW disc. I think I'm just not using the right settings but I could never find what to use.

[Gregg]

QUOTE(LR827 @ Sep 10 2007, 07:38 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And, Gregg, yes, dragging to a Zip disk is very easy.

Ya, I know. My question was whether it was just as easy with a flash drive. Apparently it is. I think that is the next wave. Removable disks are so early 21st Century.

Hope someone can help you with the CD re-burn thing. I can tell you how to make a match burn twice...