5 1/4 external drive enclosure? (Where to find one)

[Alzarius]

I've got 3 drive bays on my desktop that are filled with cdrom/cdrw/Live drives... I had to remove my Teac combo floppy drive from the 3rd bay when I got the cdrw drive. I've now got the floppy cable and power cord routed out the back of the computer with the drive off to the side just to eep it connected. Does anyone know where I can find an enclosure for a 5 1/4 floppy drive? I'd like to find a variety to choose from if possible... And possibly an extension for the small floppy power plugs and a longer floppy cable... I'm not having any luck finding an enclosure and I've been looking for a while now.

These Teac combo floppy drives are the absolute best. Too bad they don't still sell them. By the way, I'm not surrently looking for this, but... Has anyone seen desktop cases that DON'T have a 3 1/2 floppy drive bay in them? Just 5 1/4 inch bays... When I ever get around to upgrading to ATX, I'd like to know if I can find one with that dinky waste of space drive bay in it.

By the way, here's a photo of the greatest floppy drive ever created. It's a bit dirty though so it's not mine(heh!)

<IMG SRC="http://www.classicgaming.com/3dotoday/pictures/fd505teac.jpg" border=0>

[This message has been edited by Alzarius (edited 09-27-2000).]

[DaveLewis]

JDR Microdevices used to carry some of that "oddball" stuff. I don't have a catalog handy but you might want to check their web site.

[Alzarius]

Thanks. I just checked, but the closest thing I could find was a SCSI enclosure unfortunately. I could prolly get the cables from them though. Anyone else out there know where to find these 5 1/4 external drive enclosures?

[Rat]

You can also try Tiger Direct..... www.tigerdirect.com. (http://www.tigerdirect.com.)

Rat

[howste]

I've got an external 5¼" drive from an old PS/2 just sitting around at home. It has its own AC power cord and some kind of cable that attaches to a card in the PC I think. I don't know if you could swap the drive out in it or not. I really have no great desire to keep it. If you're interested, I could take a look to see if it could be done.

Steve

[Alzarius]

That would be great! I'll check out Tiger in the meantime. However, a quick description of the drive. It's a basic 5 1/4 sized unit with a regular sized faceplate. The floppy connector, is on the lower left rear side(if you are looking at it face on/disk insertion side) It's got a card edge connector that can be removed(Not like I've ever seen a floppy drive that used the pin connector instead of the edge connector) It uses one standard mini 4 plug power cable and that's a half inch to the right of the cable connector. Anyway, just something for you to go by if you check your external drive...

[tonym]

Also try www.jameco.com (http://www.jameco.com) .

They have add on stuff laike PSUs and cases and...


Good luck...


Tony

[howste]

Well, I dug the drive out of storage. It's pretty big & solidly built. It measures 9"x16"x2½". Inside it looks like a regular 5¼" drive with regular bezel. The drive connector inside I think is what you called a card edge connector (circuit board of drive fits into slot in cable connector). The power connection is a standard 4-pin (not mini) connector. The external connector is a DB37 - like a 25 pin parallel connector, but with 37 pins. Your best bet would probably be to remove it and just attach a long floppy cable if you can find one. I found a couple of pictures of it on the net. The first one is just the front and shows the external connector: <IMG SRC="http://c.postmypic.com/c.nsf/z/IBM4869FloppyGITG/$file/IBM4869Floppy.gif" border=0>
The next one shows the whole thing in a stack of other PS/2 stuff(3rd from bottom): <IMG SRC="http://c.postmypic.com/c.nsf/z/ibmstuffVGNN/$file/ibmstuff.jpg" border=0>
If you want it, pay shipping and it's yours.

Steve