[sebhc] Floppy Drive questions.

[Mark Garlanger]

I will shortly be getting an H89 with a hard-sector controller. It going to have the standard 100K drive in it. I have an external H77 case and trying to see what kind of drives I could get to put in it.

 I hope to be getting a soft-sector controller also. Based on the mounting holes in the H77, it appears that I will be able to put 4 half-height drives in it. I'm thinking, I should have one or two more hard-sectored drives and 2 or 3 soft-sectored drives. 

I have heard that I can put the old 1.2M 5 1/4" drives in and they will provide 400K with the Hard-sector controller and 800K with the soft-sector controller. Has anyone tried this? What were the results.

I have also heard that 3.5" 720K drives were electrically the same the 5.25" drives and can be connected up to the soft-sector controller. Again, has anyone tried this, and was it successful? If this is possible, it might be the cheapest route for finding media. 

Also I heard that the 3.5" 1.44 drives were electrically the same at the 8" drives, and a H47 controller can handle them. Has anyone tried this and what were the results? Any special cable needed?

Also, is there any way around the limitation that the H89 can only have two drive controllers? I would like to have the hard-sector controller, the soft-sector controller, and the H47 or H67 all in one system. That would offer the greatest flexibility in drives/disk support, especially if I was able to use the newer 3.5" drives on those controllers.

Thanks,
  Mark