Date   : Wed, 07 Aug 2002 08:50:40 +0100
From   : "Austin Pass" <ozpass@...>
Subject: Give up on 3.5" Floppies

Hi guys,

Thanks for all your help and advice but I regret that I just can't get this
working.  It would appear from the advice I've been given that a modern HD
drive can only work if it's able to switch to lower speeds/densities (which
mine clearly don't).  To reiterate, these are the things I've tried to get
it to work:

1) Tried 2 different Master 128's.
2) Tried 3 different floppy drives: Mitsumi, Panasonic and Samsung. (maybe
1-3 years old)
3) Tried 3 different leads: 2 standard PC (with twist) floppy cables and 1
home made (crimped an IDC connector onto an existing 5.25" BBC floppy drive
cable).
4) Powered the floppy drives from Master's Aux power AND a modified ATX
power supply.
5) Completely dismantled the Mitsumi drive looking for jumpers/ switches/
resistor packs.
6) Tried 5 different HD floppies, then covered holes with tape and tried 'em
again.
7) Even filled the hole in one of them with epoxy and sanded it down!
8) Tried everything as drive 0 AND drive 1

The same thing happens EVERY time:  Any * command accessing the drive sets
the motor spinning (slowly) but the light doesn't come on and nothing
happens at the BBC end- it just sits there!  I get no error, nothing.  It
just sits there looking stern- mocking me!

As a final note- I doubt it's relevant, but when I got these machines the
CMOS was screwed so I had to do a Power On+R and the usual *CONFIGURE LANG
etc. to get it back to normal.

Ah well, guess I'll just have to track down some 5.25" floppies (bit hard in
Ireland!),
Austin.