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HDR USB Floppy Emulator / Floppy Drive Removal

PostPosted: Sun Apr 17, 2016 11:15 pm
by doktor1360
OK Y'all...

Per the subject, anyone looking at this ever remove the 3 1/2 floppy and reinstall a USB emulator in an HDR? It looks pretty involved as far as the physical mounting of the drive itself - I've got my HDR open with the IDE cage removed, have the one side screw and both bottom screws removed that involve holding the exposed side of the floppy drive where it fastens to it's mounting flange. This thing feels like it's hardly budging... and appears to require the motherboard to be moved out of the way to access the cavity underneath where the floppy & external drive housings are, just to even see what else is further involved. I'm kind hoping I'm wrong and missing something simple here, so I'm throwing out there to see if anyone else has had a similar experience...

Any/all input is welcomed and greatly appreciated...

Thanx in advance!

Peace

Re: HDR USB Floppy Emulator / Floppy Drive Removal

PostPosted: Mon Apr 18, 2016 11:35 am
by arjepsen
Hey.
I have an HDR, and I know the problem. I recently bought a new quiet power supply for it, and I had to take the whole thing apart AND do some chassis hacking becuase the new supply was just about 1cm too long.
But it worked out fine in the end though.
You probably do have to take the whole thing apart though.
Just make sure that you take pictures on the way, and save all the screws, so you can put everything back in it's rightfull place after installing the drive.

Good luck :-)

Re: HDR USB Floppy Emulator / Floppy Drive Removal

PostPosted: Mon Apr 18, 2016 9:33 pm
by doktor1360
arjepsen wrote:I have an HDR, and I know the problem. I recently bought a new quiet power supply for it, and I had to take the whole thing apart AND do some chassis hacking becuase the new supply was just about 1cm too long.
But it worked out fine in the end though.
You probably do have to take the whole thing apart though.
Just make sure that you take pictures on the way, and save all the screws, so you can put everything back in it's rightful place after installing the drive.
Good luck :-)


That's what I was thinking, there wasn't any 'magical' way around this other than tearing it down to where I could access the floppy for replacement. Your confirmation as such leaves a clear course of action for me - pragmatic teardown and rebuild of the hardware. No biggie, just time-consuming and paying attention to details... it's essentially a 'specialty' pc internally...

Thanx in advance... appreciate the input greatly...

\m/ 8-) ,,,

Peace

Re: HDR USB Floppy Emulator / Floppy Drive Removal

PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 11:12 pm
by doktor1360
arjepsen wrote:You probably do have to take the whole thing apart though.
Just make sure that you take pictures on the way, and save all the screws, so you can put everything back in it's rightfull place after installing the drive.


Turns out it wasn't that difficult at all. Merely remove the drive tray screws from underneath the unit, loosen the face plate and access the drive... USB emulator went in easy after fastening to the drive tray. :ugeek:

Now, all I'm waiting on is a San Disk 128GB CF card to arrive - mounting it on an IDE black plane adapter for external access... and once I close it up I don't think I'm gonna have to open this unit back up again for quite a while. All in all, if this is something anyone wants to do, I'd rate it as 4-5 on the difficulty scale of 1-10. The most difficult part would probably be the power connector, getting it off and back onto the new emulator - those connectors for the floppy drives can be a right fucking pain in the bag-ettes... :lol:

\m/ :D ,,,

Peace