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Removable storage devices |
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1. Can I set up an LS-120 drive as a bootable
drive?
Reader: I want to set up my IDE
interface LS-120 SuperDisk as a bootable device.
I'm not using a 1.44MB standard 3.5" floppy drive
at all on this machine. Any suggestions?
Computer Doctor: First, I recommend you
download and read the manual for your motherboard
and confirm that the LS-120 SuperDisk is supported
as a bootable drive. Most reputable motherboard
manufacturers have manuals posted on their web
sites as .PDF (Adobe Acrobat) files. Second, I also suggest you download the
Superdisk Internal IDE Drive documentation from
http://www.imation.com/images/DataStorage/IDE.pdf.
Other SuperDisk documentation and drivers are
available at
http://www.imation.com/products/data/content/0,1011,1031,00.html
To setup the LS-120 drive as a bootable device,
install it as a Secondary Master or Slave device.
Enter your BIOS setup, select Standard CMOS Setup,
and configure the Secondary Master or Slave
(wherever you installed the LS-120 drive) as "ARMD"
(ATAPI Removable Device). Save settings and exit. Note that you cannot boot a 120M diskette with
DOS 6.22, Windows 95, or 95A. I recommend you use
Win98 or preferrably 98SE (Second Edition). To eliminate any redundant drivers, after
setting up the LS-120 drive in the BIOS, boot
Win98, enter the Device Manager and remove all
instances of the LS-120 drive. Then reboot, and
allow Win98 to detect the drive and install any
appropriate drivers.
2. I'm having problems with floppies formatted
in my LS-120 drive. Can you help?
Reader: I have an LS-120 SuperDisk
drive installed as A: drive. It is recognized by
the BIOS which has the LS/ZIP/C: boot option. This
is an internal drive manufactured by Mitsubishi
and sold by Digital Research.
If I use the DOS FORMAT A:/Q command, on a 1.44
Mb disk, I receive the same message of ~500K bad
bytes on every floppy that I try. If I use the
FORMAT A: on a 1.44 disk, no errors are found. I want to use QuickFormat as a fast way to
erase the disk. And do I need any special software
to format my SuperDisk Media.
Computer Doctor: The manual for the
Superdisk Internal IDE Drive
http://www.imation.com/images/DataStorage/IDE.pdf
indicates that if your system has the correct BIOS
and system support, SuperDisk diskettes can be
formatted using the Quick Format or (full) Format
option in Windows 95 or 98. If your system does
not have BIOS support, the Quick Format option
won't work the first time you attempt to reformat
a SuperDisk diskette. Subsequent quick formats
work correctly.
So, use Full Format the first time you format a
SuperDisk, and QuickFormat works OK. Similarly,
you need to use Full Format on 1.44MB floppies
initially, then QuickFormat will work. I suggest downloading the docs from the site
above and studying them thoroughly! Everything you need to format SuperDisk media
is included in Windows 98, but you can't use 120MB
SuperDisk media as a bootable device with DOS
6.22, Windows 95, or 95A. Windows 98, 95B (OSR2),
and NT 4.0 or later (Windows Me/Windows 2000)
support booting from either the 1.44MB standard
3.5" floppy or the 120MB SuperDisk. If you are using QuickFormat to delete all the
files, Imation suggests that you use either the
Delete key (click on Windows Explorer> Edit>
Select All) for Windows 95 or 98 or the DEL*.*
command for DOS. These commands may clear the
disk's contents faster than formatting will.
3. How do I configure Windows to not look for
a Floppy Disk Controller?
Reader: I recently
upgraded to an LS-120 floptical drive and decided
to remove the floppy drive. The LS-120 connects to
the IDE cable, and not into the normal floppy
cable. I also disabled my Floppy Drive Controller
(FDC) from the CMOS Setup. The drive is working
perfectly; it's addressed as drive A: and I can
even boot from it. However, now everytime Windows
95 OSR2 loads up, during the Win95 logo screen, it
takes 40 seconds longer to start. I am very sure
it is because it is looking for the floppy disk
controller, but it 40 seconds to timeout. The
"Standard Floppy Controller" does not appear in
the Device Manager anymore - which it shouldn't,
since it's disabled. Needless to say, the delay is
very annoying. Do you know of a way to configure
Windows so as not to bother checking for an FDC
when it starts up? Maybe via the Registry, or
something?
Computer Doctor: I don't think it is
checking for an FDC since the driver isn't being
loaded, but I'm not positive. I suspect it may be
trying to read an LS-120 disk instead. Try
inserting a formatted disk in the drive as soon as
Windows 95 begins loading, if it now loads faster,
then that was it. Unfortunately, I don't know of
any way to correct this, but I'd certainly check
to see if this was fixed in Windows 98.
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