Floppy disks are read and written by a floppy disk drive or FDD, the latter initialism not to be confused with "fixed disk drive", which is an old IBM term for a hard disk drive.
Nonetheless, manufacturers were reluctant to remove the floppydrive from their PCs, for backward compatibility, and because many companies' IT departments appreciated a built-in file transfer mechanism that always worked and required no device driver to operate properly.
Apple Computer was the first mass-market computer manufacturer to drop the floppydrive from a computer model altogether with the release of their iMac model in 1998, and Dell made the floppydrive optional in some models starting in 2003.
Floppy disk drives were originally introduced commercially as a read-only device to hold microcode and diagnostics for large IBM mainframe computer systems in the early 1970s.
In most drives, this is an optical sensor which must be adjusted such that when the system is first powered on, or recalibrated, (ie, blindly sent to track 0 by the controller), the drive's heads are able to be placed accurately at the starting track 0.
Often the drive's test points are difficult to locate, especially when the drive is installed in a computer, and of course using an AAD requires that one be well versed in the usage of an oscilloscope, etc. It is also very helpful to have some knowledge and experience maintaining diskette drives.
Drive A Connectors: The pair of connectors (or single connector in the case of a three-connector cable) at the opposite end of the cable is intended for the A: floppydrive.
Drive B Connectors: The pair of connectors (or single connector in the case of a three-connector cable) in the middle of the cable is intended for the B: floppydrive.
This is done to cause the drive at the end of the cable to appear as A: to the system and the one in the middle to be as B:.
Floppy disks are a quick and convenient medium for backing up small data files or transferring information between computers.
The 5.25-inch floppy disk, which predated 3.5-inch diskettes, was sheathed in a flexible square jacket -- and it flopped plenty.
Today's computers use high-density floppydrives that are 3.5 inches in diameter and store up to 1.4 megabytes of data on a disk.
tms.ecol.net /computer/pfloppy.htm (1130 words)
Floppy Drives - How They Work(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
The floppy disk drive was invented in 1967 at IBM by Alan Shugart.
The drive spins the disk at 300RPM or 360RPM, therefore this contact between the heads and the recording medium is not a problem to the data because friction is minimum.
Like the hard drive, it serves to control the internal parts of the drive and serves as an interface between these parts and the floppydrive controller.
Are the floppies write protected; i.e., when looking at the back of the floppy with the metal door down, the little tab in the rectangular hole at the top, left of the floppy blocks light.
If the floppydrive LED stays on all of the time, you have the flat cable plugged in backwards on either the motherboard or drive; the red stripe goes to pin 1.
Symptoms: When a floppy disk is inserted into floppy disk drive and the directory is displayed, the directory of the floppy that was previously in the drive is displayed.
www.duxcw.com /faq/fd/fd.htm (422 words)
Floppy Drives(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
Gone are the 5.25 bulky floppy disks, that held limited information, would bend, break, were bulky, and in came the 1.44MB 3 1/2" floppydrives that are the standard today.
The ribbon cable that goes from the back of the floppydrive to the system board or controller may be bad or the connection may be loose.
If the light on the floppydrive(s) stays on constantly from the time the system is powered up, the data cable on the system board or controller card may be on backwards.
Floppy disk drives are used to "read stored information" from a magnetic encoded disk, and copy this information into the computer's memory (RAM) so it can be used by the computer.
A Floppy disk drive is also used to "write" information from the computer's memory onto a disk so it can be stored for later use.
Floppy and Hard Disks are called nonvolatile memory because they will retain their information without the aid of electricity.
In a typical cabling arrangement with two 5 1/4-inch floppies, for example, the terminating resistor is installed in drive A: (at the end of the cable), and this resistor is removed from the other floppydrive on the same cable (B:).
The letter to which the drive responds is not important in relation to terminator settings; the important issue is that the drive at the end of the cable has the resistor installed and functioning, and that other drives on the same cable have the resistor disabled or removed.
Drives that use the disk media-sensor hole to control the drive mode are prevented from incorrectly formatting a disk.
Dell foments floppy's fall | CNET News.com(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
Dell, which nixed floppies as standard equipment on its Inspiron 4150 and 8250 notebooks last summer, will let customers configure one of its top-of-the-line Dimension 8250 PCs without a floppydrive by the end of this month, company representatives said.
Although the floppy may no longer be a technological necessity, Dell executives concede that it may still be important to some customers to have one--a security blanket for their PC.
Floppies were thought to be threatened by the NetPC and legacy-free PC movements spawned by Compaq Computer's original iPaq desktop PC.
Today's floppy disk drives have evolved almost as much as the PC over the past 15 years.
The HowStuffWorks site has a detailed article that includes a history of the floppy disk drive, a description of the parts of a floppy disk drive, and information about how data is written to, and retrieved from, a disk.
If so, visit this ZDNet page where floppy disk drive components are identified and defined for those people who choose to repair or upgrade their floppydrives.
The 5th drive connected to the iMac's second USB port.
I cleverly renamed it to "floppy raid" denoting it's newly deserved status.
I also understand that carrying 5 USB floppydrives around is not exactly portable, but there is something special and amazing about the speed of this floppy cluster.
ohlssonvox.8k.com /fdd_raid.htm (966 words)
Y-E DATA | Products | Floppy Disk Drives | Standard USB Floppy Disk Drive (for OEM)(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
The Standard USB Floppy Disk Drive adds functionality and versatility to your USB enabled Macintosh or PC computer.
At just 280 grams (under 10 oz) and about ½ inch thick this drive is ideal for portability and desk saving.
Reads and writes the convenient swappable floppy diskette media, which is one of the worlds most prevalent media formats.
Unlike the standard 3.5" floppy, which was designed to fit into an HP engineer's shirt pocket (that was before Dilbert was invented - but you get the idea) today's solid state storage devices will fit in your camera or a key ring, and typically contain 100 times as much storage as a standard floppy.
On a single floppydrive PC you would have to plug floppies in and out each time you changed application.
But the high volumes of the PC market eventually enabled hard drive manufacturers to achieve cost of scale economies which drove down the cost and made them affordable by consumers.
www.storagesearch.com /flopdriv.html (598 words)
Floppy Drives(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
- Brand New, individually boxed - Made for IBM - Besides using a 360K in a computer system these drives are used in POS systems and industrial control devices which have a built-in drive controller that can not be replaced.
Anatomy of a 5 1/4" FloppyDrive by Marcus Fink involves the taking apart of a 5 1/4 floppydrive to salvage parts for a robotics project.
www.eio.com /floppdrvintro.htm (278 words)
Toshiba, Compaq, IBM, Dell, HP Laptop floppy drives(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
Toshiba, Compaq, IBM, Dell, HP Laptop floppydrives
Toshiba, Compaq, IBM, Dell, HP Laptop floppydrive
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