LS-120 Drives - TTLG Forums

Brian The Dog on 28/3/2012 at 19:40

Dear fellow TTLG'ers,

I recently acquired a LS-120 (SuperDisk) floppy disk drive for a laptop, in the slim-3.5" format. You can see a screenshot of if (http://s18.postimage.org/xa4716g8p/2012_03_28_20_10_54.jpg) here: For reference, it is a Mitsubishi MF357H-212MG.

I was wondering if I could put it to use as an IDE floppy drive, since LS-120 drives are backwards compatible, and modern motherboards usually do not have floppy drive headers. So I was wondering about two things:

- What connector is shown on the back (http://s15.postimage.org/ppxsd9ztn/2012_03_28_20_10_21.jpg) here? Is it a laptop variant of IDE? Any thoughts as to how I can connect it to a modern SATA/IDE desktop motherboard?
- Does anyone know where I can get a slimline 3.25" to a desktop 3.25" or 5.25" bay converter kit, so I can put it in my midi-tower? There's quite a few adapter-kits for slimline optical drives to 5.25" bays, but I can't find anything for slimline floppies.

Thanks in advance!

Al_B on 28/3/2012 at 20:38

Yes, that looks like a version of a mini-IDE connector although it's not the most common type (normally it looks closer to a shrunken IDE connector that takes power as well as the normal data signals). If you hunted around enough you'd probably be able to find something along with an adapter to fit it in your case but it'll probably end up costing more than its worth.

Have you ruled out just buying a USB floppy drive (e.g. (http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/dynamode-external-usb-floppy-disc-drive-black-04877724-pdt.html) this sort of thing?). I suspect it'll save you a lot of pain in the long run and it'll be easier to move between computers if you need to.

Brian The Dog on 28/3/2012 at 20:44

Thanks, someone has lent me a laptop IDE to "normal IDE" adapter, and it seems to fit fine. I looked up the same connector to buy, and it's around £5 on Amazon, so that's OK. I do actually have an external USB floppy, I was just thinking what to do with the LS-120 drive that someone donated to me :) I'm going to check it works via this connector before I spend any money though.

So now I'm just wondering how to fix the thing into a desktop PC...

Edit - Hmm, Amazon.com sell one (http://www.amazon.com/Chenbro-Slim-ODD-bay-SK41201/dp/B005NYOR34/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332969783&sr=8-1) here, and ship to the UK, but it is looking a bit pricey. Especially since I hooked up the LS-120 drive to the IDE adapter, connected that to my PC, and got a few sparks from the floppy power connector on it :( A bit of a burning smell in my room now, I think I might just not use it and give it back to the donor!