Can a floppy connect via IDE????

n3x · 30 Aug 2006 at 17:19

Is there such a thing as a floppy drive that you can connect via IDE cable? We have here a server that has no floppy drive... it doesnt even have a floppy controller! Can you get a floppy (36 pin) to ide (40 pin) cable converter or something???

celliott · 30 Aug 2006 at 17:21

Buy a floppy controller card?

I think thats the only way to do it if the things exist, I would assume they would in older pc's, however I have never come accross an adapter.

stoofa · 30 Aug 2006 at 17:58

No - afraid not, floppy drives won't run off an IDE channel.
2 options:

1. Find extremely rare and expensive SCSI floppy drive (If server has SCSI controller).
2. Find cheaper USB floppy drive

utherpendragon · 30 Aug 2006 at 19:12

didn't ls-120 drives (and similar) use IDE. They were backwards compatible with floppy.

Werewolf · 30 Aug 2006 at 19:17

I think the LS120 used the floppy controller, I vaguely remember it being an option on the bios for my 486/pentium (along with 2.88 and 350k drives).

IDE controllers can I think work with some flash memory types though with a simple adaptor (IIRC compact flash is electrically compatible and just needs a pin adaptor - I may be confusing it with another format though).

Phil2008 · 30 Aug 2006 at 22:58

Yeah you can use a floppy disk is a LS120 drive, cos I used a floppy disk in one last week.