Floppy 3 Mode Support – The BIOS Optimization Guide

Floppy 3 Mode Support

Common Options : Disabled, Drive A, Drive B, Both

 

Quick Review

For reasons best known to the Japanese, their computers come with special 3 mode 3.5″ floppy drives. While physically similar to the standard 3.5″ floppy drives used by the rest of the world, these 3 mode floppy drives differ in the disk formats they support.

Unlike normal floppy drives, 3 mode floppy drives support three different floppy disk formats – 1.44 MB, 1.2 MB and 720 KB. Hence, their name. They allow the system to support the Japanese 1.2 MB floppy disk format, as well as the standard 1.44 MB and 720 KB (obsolete) disk formats.

If you own a 3 mode floppy drive and need to use the Japanese 1.2 MB disk format, you must enable this feature by selecting either Drive A, Drive B or Both (if you have two 3 mode floppy drives). Otherwise, your 3 mode floppy drive won’t be able to read the special 1.2 MB format properly.

However, if you only have a standard floppy drive, you must disable the Floppy 3 Mode Support feature or your floppy drive may not function properly.

 

Details

For reasons best known to the Japanese, their computers come with special 3 mode 3.5″ floppy drives. While physically similar to the standard 3.5″ floppy drives used by the rest of the world, these 3 mode floppy drives differ in the disk formats they support.

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Unlike normal floppy drives, 3 mode floppy drives support three different floppy disk formats – 1.44 MB, 1.2 MB and 720 KB. Hence, their name. They allow the system to support the Japanese 1.2 MB floppy disk format, as well as the standard 1.44 MB and 720 KB (obsolete) disk formats.

If you own a 3 mode floppy drive and need to use the Japanese 1.2 MB disk format, you must enable this feature by selecting either Drive A, Drive B or Both (if you have two 3 mode floppy drives). Otherwise, your 3 mode floppy drive won’t be able to read the special 1.2 MB format properly.

However, if you only have a standard floppy drive, you must disable the Floppy 3 Mode Support feature or your floppy drive may not function properly.

 

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