Too Clever For Their Own Good

As mentioned in the previous post, I am the owner of a brand-new Compaq Presario SR1300NX computer. Due to factors beyond our control we have the need for floppy disk drive in this computer. A quick glance inside the floor model revealed that it does have both a floppy connector on the motherboard and the proper power connector on the power supply. So I opted to have what I assumed would be the cleaner option and purchased an internal floppy drive and cable.

Sadly, Compaq doesn't believe in internal floppy drives.

There is a removeable panel in the front cover between the removeable media slots (e.g. compact flash) and the front audio/USB/Firewire ports. Taking this off reveals an unused 3.5" drive bay which would be perfect for a floppy drive save for three things: first, the opening in the case faceplate is 6" wide; second, the drive bay is left justified in that space; and third, the mounting system doesn't let me mount the drive in the proper position front-to-back (it either sticks out half an inch or is recessed half an inch.

So scratch that option. There are some full size bays near the top for things like CD drives. You can buy an enclosure to hold a floppy in an attractive fashion in such a space. Unfortunately, Compaq strikes again. Apparently it just isn't sexy enough to have the front of a CD drive visible in the front, so they have a little trap door in front of two positions where they want you to install your CD/DVD drives. These trap doors are opened from the inside by the force of the disk tray opening. They even have a little button on the door which you must hope will line up properly with the eject button on your drive, if you wish to use an aftermarket drive in this beast.

I'm going to see if I can remove one of the trap doors without doing too much injury to the case. I'm hoping to use one of those floppy enclosures, though the possibility still exists that Compaq's sexy mounting system won't let me install that at the proper depth either. Oh, well. There is still the option of an external USB floppy drive.