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Date:	Thu, 6 Mar 2003 10:36:03 PST8
From:	Steve Carter <scarter@vcnet.com >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: LS-120 drives

Content Type: text/plain

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JR:

I still have LS-120 drives on both my W98 and Warp 4 machines.
They are noisy but faster than floppies. I bought the faster 2X
Panasonic drives. The LS-120 media seems very reliable. Since
it is a contact media, one cannot have a head crash. Although
the LS disks are harder to find nowadays, they are still available
for under $8-$10 (PriceWatch).

I, too, wanted to make boot disks out of 120 MB LS-120s, but never
succeeded. The LS-120 is an IDE device which is installed by the
BIOS as the logical A: or B: floppy. But there is no BIOS mechanism
to recognize the 120MB capacity (at least on my older MBs).
Newer Warp IDE drivers recognize the LS-120 just fine, but the
problem is getting them loaded from an LS-120 boot disk.
I don't know how to do it.

The Linux guys manage to make it work from time to time, depending
on the BIOS support for the LS-120 in the individual machine,
so I presume it is actually possible.

A two-disk boot mechanism might work. Somewhat like the IBM boot
floppies, except switching to LS-120 media for the second disk.
Perhaps Steven has some insight into this part of the boot process.
It's always been somewhat of a mystery to me.

I would love to know more about this. I'd encourage anyone with
useful experience to jump in.

-- Steve

++++++++++++++++
On 3/5/03, J.R. Fox wrote, in part:
>
>I expect this must be a semi-obsolete topic, but has anyone here ever
>replaced a 1.44 fdd with an LS-120 ? (Which I seem to recall was able
>to handle regular 1.44 floppies also . . . . ) If so, are you still
>using it ? Any driver or other "gotchas", particularly for OS/2 ?
>If they also handle the regular 1.44s, do they do so reliably ?
>
>My thinking on this goes as follows: I very seldom use a floppy any
>more, and -- notwithstanding Steven's theory that it "ought" to work
>-- BOOTOS2 on floppies seems to be D.O.A. as of the later, larger
>Warp kernels. A rather well-equipped PM flavor of BOOTOS2 ought to
>fit comfortably on an LS-120 disk, provided one can boot off it. I
>have H/D maintenance partition options, but always liked having the
>floppy option as well.
>
>Assuming this is all doable, are LS-120 drives still on the market,
>and can you suggest a good one ?
>
>Jordan
>=====================================================

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