PC-9821 Ce2 Floppy Drive Issues

[98digger]

Hello NFG, it's been a while since I last posted here.

Remember how I was attempting to get FreeDOS(98) to work properly because my PC-98 hard drive failed? Well, good news. I imaged the "broken" hard drive, and after analyzing the image with a Hex Editor, I was able to repair the image. The only thing that's not working at the moment is Windows 3.1, but I really have no use for Windows anyways (just DOS). Every game i have tried so far is working, and even my 98Mouse is functioning correctly. I'm still trying to get the CD-ROM drive to load; I have no idea how I should configure CONFIG.SYS to make it work.

Anyways, I formatted a whole bunch of floppy disks recently, created an emergency MS-DOS 5.00 boot disk, and wrote a few games to floppies (I have to say, playing games like Touhou off of a floppy is ridiculously slow). However, after trying to get the PC-98 to read a (unfortunately slightly dusty, I have found) Windows 95 install disk, it started giving me "Abort, Retry, Fail?" errors. I tried cleaning the drive, but when I put it in the PC-98, the entire system refused to boot until I shut it off and unplugged the FDD. I unplugged it and plugged it back it, and it booted off of the CF Card, but the activity light on the FDD remained a solid orange, so I shut it off again and tried reseating the connector, but that still didn't work.

At the moment, MS-DOS refuses to even recognize the drive at all. If I put a disk in and reboot, not even the BIOS detects it, and the PC-98 instead boots straight to the CF-Card. The behaviour of the drive varies, apparently.

So, is my Floppy Disk Drive fried? If so, can I just swap it out with another PC-98 floppy drive, or does it have to match the drive I have now exactly? The brand is "TUV Product Service". I already tried flipping the switch in the back of the drive, but that didn't work.

I myself think the controller board is probably fried or something. Don't know how reading a faulty IBM PC Windows 95 disk could have done that, but I guess it's possible.


Any help is greatly appreciated! 

Thanks,
-98digger

[SkyeWelse]

Hi 98digger,

When I blew my bottom FDD drive up that came with my Ce2 I had to seek a replacement and I used the following website list to find a suitable replacement off of Yahoo Japan. I'm surprised as this site was so very helpful, but it apparently went down: http://www.geocities.jp/cpuparts98/FDD/FDDLIST/98FDS.htm. Fortunately, the Wayback Machine Internet Archive saved a copy back from May: https://web.archive.org/web/20110501020701/http://www.geocities.jp/cpuparts98/FDD/FDDLIST/98FDS.htm and remains today as the most comprehensive list of compatible PC-98 FDD models, 2-MODE and 3-MODE.

Thing is, even with the drive that was obviously blown (crack in one of the chips) I "believe" I received I/O Errors on start up, or at least whenever trying to read media from it.

If you've check all the connectors to make sure they are good and tight, you might try a different set of floppy cables just to rule out a bad cable next? I'm not sure.

As for the CD-Rom. I got A CD-Rom to work eventually. I think I have a thread here somewhere which explains more on which one worked for me, but I was never successful with getting the original CD-Rom that came with my Ce2 to work properly.

Good luck though. I really need to get back into the PC-98 hardware hobby soon.

-Thomas