Solutions for Using a Floppy Disk in a Modern PC (Not USB)
AnthonySmith
#1
Anyone got any tried and tested methods of running a floppy drive in a modern PC?
Maybe a pci card with old school ide/floppy controllers?
Solaire
#2
I’ve done a bit of research on this in the past. Please note that the next best thing is probably a (software) floppy drive emulator (since you rule out USB). If that doesn’t work out, I’d say your best bet is to connect an older computer that actually has a floppy drive. But that’s not what you asked, so…
PCI to FDC (Floppy Drive Controller) doesn’t exist (there’s been a few companies that have produced them in the past, but I’m talking more than 15 years ago. Quantity was very limited so chances you find them working are very slim). What does exist in larger quantities is ISA -> FDC. There are converters on the market that do PCI -> ISA. I’ve seen PCI -> ISA -> FDC work. PCIe -> PCI -> ISA is something I have never seen before but should technically work.
WSS
#3
I don’t see anything branded by StarTech, who still as PATA to PCIe devices, so you might just be SOL for non-USB. I might give it a further gander shortly…
thagoat
#4
WSS:
PATA
Oh how I miss ribbon cables
AnthonySmith
#5
Though as much, ebay for an old PC it is then.
1 Like
thagoat
#6
ZIP drive FTW!!!
4 Likes
Falzo
#7
you could try to get an old LS120 /w parallel port connector. afaik those could read 1.44 MB floppies as well…
2 Likes
WSS
#8
He’s just as likely to find a functional driver for that as he is getting a PATA LS120, which also existed.
At least other than getting an IDE controller, he’d mostly be set.
Not a clue how well it’d handle the offline/nodisk changeline, but it’d be easier than making a parallel one work, I’m sure.
2 Likes
Falzo
#9
true story… a PATA LS120 I think I have in the basement somewhere… and a board, cpu, ram. FREE CANDY anyone?
1 Like
WSS
#10
If you’re still looking, I had a brainfart when someone posted some old FreeBSD CDs.
An Adaptec AHA-1542 has a built-in floppy port and is accessible via SCSI.
However, uh, it’s ISA.
So, I guess this was a free, worthless bump.
2 Likes
Harambe
#11
PCI -> USB adapter, then a USB floppy drive
1 Like
AnthonySmith
#12
I bought a laptop with a built in floppy drive, sorted
1 Like
thagoat
#13
AnthonySmith:
I bought a laptop
Expensive way to read a floppy
1 Like
WSS
#14
How old is that Thinkpad?
1 Like
AnthonySmith
#15
its a compaq, thats how old!
2 Likes
WSS
#16
That has got to be a 4/25c? I don’t remember anything newer that had a floppy that wasn’t on an external dongle.
1 Like
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Overview of ASMedia ASM1166 SATA controller with PCIe 3.0 x2 interface
2018 drive test methodology
At that time, discrete disk controllers were required for any PC — since there were no others.
Even a floppy disk drive, already perceived as a hoary antiquity, could be absent in the first IBM PC — and to put it there, an ISA controller board was also required. Later, the «basic» capabilities began to be integrated onto motherboards, and then directly into chipsets. But discrete controllers remained relevant for increasing the number of connected drives, for mastering new versions of interfaces or supporting outdated ones (many continued to use PATA hard drives or optical drives even after this interface disappeared from chipsets) — or simply to expand functionality (such as RAID- arrays, etc.).
The last two options mostly lost their relevance about ten years ago: the development of interfaces stopped at SATA600, and PATA disappeared as devices physically died out. Of course, it took some time for all chipset ports on all platforms to turn into SATA600, but by the middle of the decade this process was also completed. The ability to create disk arrays has become standard not for all chipsets, but it was not difficult to choose a board on the right one.
And the ports themselves usually turned out to be an excessive number — up to ten, although most cases did not allow installing so many drives.
At one time it seemed that there would be no further difficulties with the quantity and quality of ports. However, literally immediately, after solving all the problems, the number of SATA ports began to decrease. Monotonous, but not too noticeable — thanks to FlexIO. Older Intel chipsets (like the Z490 or Z590), for example, support up to eight SATA ports. But «to» — and from zero. Each corresponding chipset port can be used as either SATA600 or PCIe 3.0 x1. PCIe lanes are becoming a scarce commodity as more are needed. For example, one NVMe drive already requires PCIe x4 — i.e. «replaces» four SATA devices, and top-end motherboards may have 2-3 M.2 slots. You can also often find a USB3 Gen2 × 2 controller there, which may require 4 more PCIe lanes. Another 4 can “go” to the Thunderbolt controller — and to various other peripherals for little things.
As a result, more than six SATA ports are rarely installed on boards, and not all of them are available in terms of configurations.
Budget systems are usually not overloaded with high-speed peripherals, but inexpensive chipsets rarely have more than four SATA. Chipsets for AMD AM4 are still a little more archaic than the older Intel chipsets, but still there are only four «guaranteed» (non-intersecting) SATA in the B550 or X570. It is possible to realize more, but few people do it. A common occurrence is the same six SATA, but a couple of ports in some configurations may no longer work.
This means that discrete controllers are back, but the requirements for them are already slightly different than 10 years ago. Firstly, the task is to “exchange” PCIe for SATA as much as possible: if only a 1:1 “rate” is obtained in chipsets, then you can go for 1:2, or even 1:4, which is profitable. Secondly, you may have to “hang” on discrete controllers not only hard drives (by and large they are SATA600 — only for growth, which will never happen again), but also SSDs — and they will not hurt to ensure the full speed of the interface.
At least for one device at a time — but this is highly desirable.
«Old» SATA controllers solve both problems poorly. Firstly, they were designed for PCIe 2.0 — so all models limited to one line do not provide a single full-speed port: SATA600 bandwidth is higher than that of PCIe 2.0. And in the “two-line” models, the “exchange” is at best in a ratio of 1:2 — like in Marvell 9235. This four-port controller has a PCIe 2.0 x2 interface — so, in principle, it solves problems. Its younger brother 9215 «makes» the same four SATA ports from a single PCIe line — but the data exchange rate even with a single drive does not exceed 400 MB / s, since these are the limitations of PCIe 2.0. ASMedia in those years produced only two-port controllers, which are now completely uninteresting: ASM1061 does not provide full speed, and ASM1062 is two SATA600 ports on two PCIe lines, which can be obtained from chipsets.
However, there is no such thing as an empty space — once a problem has arisen, solutions appear.
By the end of the decade, manufacturers were in a hurry: solutions with PCIe 3.0 support entered the market. JMicron was the first to shoot back: the company released a two-port JMB582 and JMB585 (on AliExpress sellers usually call it “JMS585”) for five ports. The interface is PCIe 3.0 x1 for the first and PCIe 3.0 x2 for the second. One line can be dispensed with, because PCIe 3.0 x1 is equal in bandwidth to PCIe 2.0 x2, so at least one device can always provide the full speed of SATA600. The «exchange rate» of the ports on the line is better than that of 9235. Yes, and than the 9215, by and large, too: JMB585, again, can get by with one line (because PCIe 3.0) in a “propylene” or simply “long” x1 slot, providing the user with five SATA ports. We emphasize: each of these SATA ports, even in this case, can operate at full speed.
A review of the JMicron JMB585 SATA controller with a PCIe 3.0 x2
JMicron JMB585 interface has already been devoted to a special review — along with a historical retrospective, which we touched on only briefly above — so it makes sense to read it.
Today we will talk about another family of controllers. It is clear that when an idea flies in the air, it usually flies into more than one head.
ASMedia ASM1166
The company has a whole line of new controllers — ASM1064, ASM1164, ASM1166, and in the depths of the drivers (but not yet on the official website) there is also a mention of the ASM1165. The key is PCIe 3.0 support for connecting to a host system: in the amount of one line in the junior ASM1064 or two in other products. They are produced in the form of boards with an x4 connector — because there are practically no x2 slots in nature, but you can use them both in longer ones and in “short ones” (if the problem of physical compatibility is solved).
The last digit in the model number is the number of SATA ports, i.e. there can be from four to six. As a result, the most interesting chips are the older and the younger ones, and AliExpress already has both of them, and they cost about the same. Why is ASM1064 needed in this case? In the absence of free «long» or «sawed» slots, it allows you to connect four SATA drives using just one PCIe 3.
0 line. In this case, at least one device at any given time can operate at full speed. In general, the two requirements formulated above are met.
Why would ‘two-line’ chips be useful under such conditions? In more complex cases than simply expanding the number of ports — for example, for soft-RAID, the performance of which will no longer be limited to about 800 MB / s (PCIe 2.0 x2 — the best that ten-year-old household appliances could), but 1.7 GB / With. In any case, the older ASM1166 provides a better PCIe-to-SATA exchange rate than the JMB585, not to mention the chipsets. And no one bothers, if necessary, to be limited to connecting it via one PCIe 3.0 line, “turning” it into already six SATA600 ports — which, in principle, completely solves the problem of the lack of ports of this type in a modern system.
But precisely «modern»! When working in old motherboards (Intel before the «first version» LGA1151 or even AMD AM4 with chipsets of the 300th and 400th families), new chips will not have advantages over outdated solutions — the chipsets themselves support only PCIe 2.
0. Or almost none — after all, there were no more than four SATA ports, and here there are five or even six. In addition, the new JMicron and ASMedia controllers do not come with their own BIOS, so booting the system from drives connected to them is not supported on older boards. In the new ones, the corresponding modules are already included directly in the «main» part of the UEFI firmware, so the boot works too. We checked this directly on some boards for both Intel and AMD processors — platforms from 2015 and later are suitable, but nothing works on earlier ones. Although if you boot from the chipset port or NVMe SSD, then you don’t have to think about it at all — data disks do not need to be loaded.
Now let’s see how it works in more detail.
Testing
Testing procedure
The procedure is described in detail in a separate article , but we have modified it slightly since then. A detailed description of the update will be ready soon, but it is not necessary — everything will be clear right in the text.
The main software does not change, the hardware — in this case, generally remains the same.
Test participants
Our main task is to compare the ASM1166 and JMB585 with each other, as well as with the «chipset» controller in the Intel Z270. For both discrete controllers, two modes of operation were tested: the second «processor» PCIe 3.0 x8 slot and the «chipset» PCIe 3.0 x1. The results of the last configuration will be useful to us for comparison with the ASM1061 on the same system — it was tested earlier. The “working body” in all cases (as before) will be a 500 GB SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD. It’s not the fastest SATA drive, but it’s more than enough for this test: all controller differences should be visible to the naked eye.
Sequential operations
Everything lies on the surface — the throughput of PCIe 2.0 x1 in one direction is lower than that of SATA600 — therefore, the full implementation of the second through the first is impossible. It is enough to switch to PCIe 3.
0 — and the problem is solved even with only one line. Why would two be useful? If, for example, we need to read data from three drives at once, they are just about enough. And, given that PCIe is a duplex interface (unlike SATA), three more can simultaneously write data. In total — it is possible to load six devices at once — as many ASM1166 ports have. The scenario for a typical PC is synthetic — but fundamentally realizable.
Not on older controllers. Even in theory. Unless, if we take hard drives — thanks to much lower speeds, something worthwhile can turn out. But even one SSD is limited to one PCIe 2.0 lane, and two in the same direction is not enough.
Random access
The results are just for reference — it is clear that they are primarily determined by the SSD used. But it is clearly visible that ASM1061 can also affect them — in a negative way. But the new controllers are sometimes even faster than the chipset one, which would have been hard to believe a few years ago.
Although in general in total in terms of low-level indicators, Z270 is still faster than our main characters. But it doesn’t matter — we can assume that they are all equal. So with the lack of ports, both the ASM1166 and the JMB585 cope perfectly — and without interfering with anything.
Working with large files
Why would you need a large number of ports? For large disk storage. Preferably fast — otherwise, it is not necessary to «stuff» it directly into the PC: and the NAS will do it. And if it’s fast, then in any case, keep part of the data on the SSD. Hard drives themselves are slower — so, on the one hand, they do not need fast ports, and on the other, they are not always enough.
And here the picture is the same: old controllers often limited the speed, to fix which “crutches” in the form of a wide interface were required, and the new ones do an excellent job on PCIe 3.0 x1. At least with a load on a single drive — but this is just the most common case.
And even if you need to work with multiple devices at the same time, there is a solid margin thanks to support for PCIe 3.0 x2.
Performance in applications
Currently, it is generally not required to use disks on additional controllers as «primary system» disks: you can use others. Including, and more productive NVMe — for the connection of which it is often necessary to free up the PCIe lanes. However, PCMark 10 is a comprehensive benchmark. It includes not only tests for loading the system or applications, but also a banal copying of data. More details on workloads can be found in our test summary at the link, but for now, just the results.
Which, at least, are funny — the chipset controller is completely and completely put to shame. Moreover, the difference is such that it cannot be attributed to the measurement error. And this is done for both controllers, and using one “chipset” PCIe line for operation is only slightly worse than using a pair of “processor” ones.
Directly at least transfer the testing of drives to them. The only pity is that we rarely come across SATA devices lately (because nothing interesting has happened in this market segment for a long time), and buyers are “looking for” speed in completely different segments.
Total
Both tested controllers (both ASMedia ASM1166 and JMicron JMB585) cope with their tasks properly. The same can be said about their younger modifications — in fact, they differ only in the number of ports and, sometimes, in execution: the simplest versions (ASM1064 and JMB582) were originally designed for installation in a PCIe 3.0 x1 slot. There are usually plenty of them on motherboards, but they are not always «propylene», so having the appropriate controllers on sale can be very useful. Moreover, we tested the x1 mode and did not find any problems, and the same ASM1064 is already a four-port one, which is enough for many in practice.
Most computer users do not need discrete SATA controllers at all, since they simply do not have a large number of SATA drives.
So it was, is and will always be: usually in a PC there are generally one or two disks, less often three or four, and more is quite exotic. But sometimes such a need does arise, and then it is extremely useful to be able to solve the problem of connecting a large number of SATA drives without being too attached to a specific motherboard. Moreover, as already mentioned in the review, the number of SATA ports on modern motherboards is gradually decreasing, and when upgrading the system, you may suddenly encounter that there are fewer of them than necessary (available, anyway). But it’s okay: if the problem can be solved for money, then this is not a problem, but just expenses . Costs are optional. But extra choice is never superfluous.
Fiber Channel Adapter Test Prerequisites
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Driver certification tests include manual and automated test cases.
All automated and manual tests must be certified.
This section describes the tasks that you must complete before testing a Fiber Channel storage controller using the Windows Hardware Lab Kit (Windows HLK):
-
Hardware requirements.
-
Software requirements.
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Test computer configuration.
-
Manual test cases
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Automatic tests
Hardware Requirements
The following hardware is required to test the Fiber Channel storage controller. If the test device offers other features, additional hardware may be required. To determine if additional hardware requirements apply, see the test description for each test that is displayed for the device in Windows HLK Studio.
Note
With the exception of the test computer and test controller, all equipment used in the test must have a logo.
-
One test computer.
The test computer must meet the Windows HLK requirements. For more information, see Windows HLK prerequisites. -
One FIBER Channel RAID storage subsystem that can support any of the following: RAID-0, RAID-1, RAID-5, RAID-10, or RAID-6.
Warning
Do not test with a storage subsystem that connects via MPIO.
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If the Fiber Channel adapter does not boot, one ATA or SCSI controller.
-
If the Fiber Channel adapter does not boot, one ATA or SCSI drive. The disk must have at least 18 GB of space.
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One floppy boot drive.
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One floppy disk.
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Two identical PCI-X or PCIe-based Fiber Channel adapters (test devices).
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Two (or three, when testing RAID-5) Fiber Channel or Fiber Channel JBOD hard drives.
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One PCI-PCI bridge adapter.
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One pci-to-PCI bridge adapter unless any of the following apply:
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Controllers cannot fit in PCI bridge adapters.
This can happen if the controllers are integrated controllers or if the controllers can only fit in specially designed slots.
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The controller is designed and sold only for systems that cannot accept full height pci-to-PCI bridge adapters, such as column servers.
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You can place one of the controllers in a PCI bus slot that is already behind the PCI bridge.
-
Note
To certify the product for use in servers, the test computer must support four processors and at least 1 GB of RAM. These system capabilities are required to test the rebalance functionality, D3 state, and multiple device and driver processor groups. Device testing does not require a computer with more than 64 processors. In addition, server systems used to test devices or drivers must be installed prior to testing. For more information, see Windows Server Installation Options.
When using a test machine pool to test devices, at least one machine in the pool must have four processors and at least 1 GB of RAM. In addition, this computer must contain the device and driver that you want to test. If the driver is the same on all computers in the pool, the system creates a schedule to run on all test computers.
For tests that do not include a test driver, such as hard drive tests, the Windows HLK scheduler restricts tests that check device and driver rebalancing, D3 state, and multi-processor group functionality to run on the test machine by default. You must manually configure this computer for multiple processor groups. The default computer is the first test computer in the list. Test personnel must verify that the first test computer on the list meets the minimum hardware requirements.
Note
With the exception of para-virtualization drivers (as defined in the WHCP policies and processes document), you may not use any form of virtualization when testing physical devices and their associated drivers for server certification or signing. All virtualization products do not support the basic functionality required to pass tests related to multiple processor groups, device power management, PCI device features, and other tests.
Note
The multiple processor group setting must be set to a value for the processor group size to test the Windows Server 2008 R2 hardware kit and later device drivers for certification. To do this, run bcdedit in an elevated Command Prompt window using the /set switch.
Below are the commands to add group options and restart.
bcdedit.exe /set groupsize 2 bcdedit.exe /set groupaware on shutdown.exe -r -t 0 -f
The commands below are for deleting group settings and rebooting.
bcdedit.exe /deletevalue groupsize bcdedit.exe /deletevalue groupaware shutdown.exe -r -t 0 -f
Note
Code integrity setting
You must first enable the Windows Server 2016 Virtualization Based Security (VBS) feature using Server Manager.
The following registry key must then be created and set:
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceGuard HypervisorEnforcedCodeIntegrity:REG_DWORD 0 or 1 (disabled, enabled)
Software requirements
The following software is required to test the Fiber Channel storage controller:
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Test device drivers.
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Latest Windows filters or HLK updates.
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Windows symbol files. They are available on the Symbol Files website.
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Current release of Windows Driver Kit (WDK)
Test computer configuration
To set up a test machine to test the Fiber Channel storage controller, complete the following steps.
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After turning off the test computer, complete the following assembly steps:
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Install one CD on the test system if the system does not already contain one.
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Install one Fiber Channel adapter (device test 1).
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Connecting a Fiber Channel adapter to a RAID system.
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If the following situations apply, connect two Fiber Channel or JBOD Fiber Channel hard drives to the test device, and then go to step G:
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The Fiber Channel Adapter test device is an integrated controller, there is only one of these controllers in the system, and there is no equivalent version of the PCI device adapter.
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The Fiber Channel adapter is designed and sold only in a node test system that accepts only one version of the controller.
Note
Use three Fiber Channel hard drives to test RAID-5.
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Install the PCI-to-PCI bridge in the PCI slot on the test system.
Note
You can also use an existing slot behind the bridge.
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Install an additional identical Fiber Channel adapter (Test Appliance 2) on the PCI-to-PCI bridge card.
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Connect two Fiber Channel or JBOD Fiber Channel hard drives to test device 2.
Note
Use three Fiber Channel hard drives to test RAID-5.
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Turn on the test computer.
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Configure JBODs or disks as array 2 according to the following list:
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If the test device only supports one RAID level, configure the JBODs or disks using that level. Otherwise, configure the JBODs or drives to the RAID levels shown in the following table.
0 and 1
1
0 and 5
5
1 and 5
1 or 5
0, 1 and 5
1 or 5
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- Array 2 must contain at least 60 GB of space.
10. Configure the RAID system as Array 1 according to the following list:
- If the RAID system supports only one RAID level, configure it by using that level. Otherwise, configure the RAID system according to the preceding table.
- Array 2 must contain at least 60 GB of space.
11. If the test Fiber Channel adapter is not bootable, install an ATA or SCSI hard disk drive and an alternate ATA or SCSI boot controller if they are not present.
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Turn on the test computer, install the appropriate Windows operating system, install any available Windows updates, and then set up the computer for the test network.
The test network is the network that contains Windows HLK Studio and the Windows HLK Controller HLK.
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Install any HBA or RAID system drivers required to connect to or control peripheral devices.
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Do one of the following to install the operating system:
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If the test Fiber Channel adapter is bootable, install the operating system on a 364 GB NTFS partition in a RAID system.
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Install an operating system on an ATA or SCSI hard drive connected to an alternate ATA or SCSI boot controller on the test system in a 36 GB partition.
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Run the test system on a Microsoft Windows operating system.
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Use the Windows Disk Management utility to configure the three NTFS partitions on array 1 as shown in the following diagram:
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Use the Windows Disk Management utility to mirror one of the volumes created in step 6 to array 2.
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To set the system page file and enable crashdump, follow these steps.
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Click the «Start » button, right-click «My Computer » and select «Properties».
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Go to tab «General » and note down the amount of RAM the computer contains.
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Click the « Advanced» tab (or click « Advanced system settings» in the left pane for Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2012), and then in area «Performance » click « Performance». Parameters .
Note
If you are prompted for administrator credentials or to allow an action, enter the credentials or allow the action.
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Go to tab «Advanced «, and then in the virtual memory area click the button «Change «.
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Select «Custom Size «, and then enter a number in the Initial Size (MB) field, that is larger than the RAM size specified in step b.
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In the text field «Maximum size (MB) , enter the maximum size value that is greater than the initial size entered in field «Initial size(MB). (The maximum size is usually 1.5 to 2 times the initial size.)
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Press button «Set» and then press button «OK» twice «.
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Click the «OK » button, and then restart your computer to update the page file size.
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Copy the Windows symbol files to %SystemDrive%\Symbols.
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Verify that Windows can access the Fiber Channel storage array.
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Install the Windows HLK client application on a test computer.
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Use Windows HLK Studio to create a computer pool, and then move the test computer to that pool.
Warning
When testing storage devices, we strongly recommend that you run all tests on the primary devices before running storage tests.