IBM 4869 5.25" floppy drive

From: Mark <mark_k_at_iname.com>
Date: Mon Sep 14 16:56:40 1998

Hi,

The other week I bought an IBM 4869 5.25" floppy drive. This is an external
unit that hooks up to a PC via a 37-way D connector. The case is massive, for a
simple floppy drive.

Anyway, I can't get it to work properly. It is probably a 360K drive mechanism,
and my PC (Philips 386SX AT clone) boots normally with this type of drive set
in the backup RAM.

I can format disks and use DIR, but reading or writing any files always gives
an Abort/Retry/Cancel error. Unsurprisingly, cleaning the heads made no
difference. Actually, to elaborate on this copying a load of files to a newly-
formatted disk gives an error after copying (say) the first two files.

Does this drive have some non-standard pinout, different from the 37-way D
5.25" port on the back of the PC, or maybe only work with IBM PS/2 machines?

If it is just faulty, what might the problem be? The cable is unlikely I think,
as is the power supply.

The casing has a couple of tamperproof Torx screws. I'd like to know what size
they are so that I can buy a suitable screwdriver bit.


Finally, on another subject, if anyone has an old PC with at least three ISA
slots (386SX would be fine) I could give it a good home.


-- Mark
Received on Mon Sep 14 1998 - 16:56:40 BST