Let me join the thread. 61 years old here and I’m a retro-computer collector. Lot of old stuff (Apple IIe, IIc, Casio FX-9000, Epson HX-20, several Macintosh, Sinclair, Commodores, etc…)
Now I’m trying to install Haiku together with OS/2 and IBM DOS in the same retro-computer but the boot manager that I use requests to have an 1.44 floppy boot to install an OS. I was able to install BeOS 5 but handicapped and it seems that Haiku has not boot floppies. Is this true or Haiku boot floppy exists?
Not sure if this is possible and has been tried so I will let others answer.
Another route may be to install Haiku on your hard drive using another computer, then put the hd back in the machine. Not the most convenient but at least doable (I did it a few years ago).
Thank you for your response. I have done something similar: As BeOS seems that was not compatible with my IDE drive I replaced the IDE drive by a SATA one (the computer have both interfaces) and BeOS was correctly installed an runs, but then the problem is that OS/2 do not boots with SATA. Then I camed back to IDE and try to install Haiku instead of BeOS, but System Commander 2000 needs a bootable floppy to install an OS so, that was not the solution.
I guess that the only solution is to upgrade to System Commander 9 that allows installing through a bootable CD. I’ll see…
Hello,
sorry if I understood your question wrong.
I had once to install Antix Linux to an old Pentium 2 PC and looked for a way to install it from USB flash drive, since I don’t had any CD writer anymore. But the PC was’t able to boot from USB.
My way to go was Plop Boot Manger: Plop Boot Manager 5.0 - Download
I created a bootable floppy disk with Plop Boot Manger on it, bootead in it and selected there boot from USB, and it worked.
Maybe it is something for you.
Ok. Did a little unit testing with my USB 2.0/1.1 floppy drive.
No floppy icons. Think it got removed during Haiku hrev563xx era (2022). NOTE (correction): There was some removal of the ISA floppy drive code and related floppy icon. USB floppy driver and floppy icon differ.
Haiku R1B5 TC0 hrev57937+36 x86 - KDL if booting to desktop with floppy drive attached to laptop. KDL if floppy drive detached from laptop. No issue if connecting floppy drive to laptop during normal desktop sessions (although, I did get a random KDL in one session of connecting the floppy drive).
Haiku R1B5 hrev58001 x86 - No KDL if booting to desktop with floppy drive attached to laptop. KDL if floppy drive detached from laptop. No issue if connecting floppy drive to laptop during normal desktop sessions
Listusb “properly” detects my floppy drive and lists it as a TEAC USB 2.0 floppy drive. I didn’t insert any media disk, as it is mentioned that read/write floppy support wasn’t supported yet.
See this test review as attaching/detaching an external USB 2.0/1.1 CD/DVD/Blu-ray drive to your computer. Similar results expected without any media disc inserted in drive.
There are two tickets on floppy drive issues.
I would have to reuse icons from the old version of Haiku, to have a floppy USB driver, maybe those who wanted to make a classic floppy driver and fix problems.
Cocobean is not living in the same reality as me once again. When you insert a floppy in an usb floppy drive and mount it (assuming a working driver, a working drive and a "orking, formatted floppy), the driver will use the correct icon. It’s the existing floppy icon withan usb logo added on the floppy label. This was not removed from Haiku and I have no idea what he is talking about.
No, this doesn’t work like on Windows, but more like in old MacOS or in Amiga OS. Icons do not represent drives, but actual storage medium (the floppy or cd itself, once it is mounted). In Mac OS and Amiga OS you could even have multiple floppies mounted at the same time in the single disk drive, and the OS would ask you to insert the right one when it needed to access files there. We didn’t implement this part (yet).
Correction:
The icon for the USB floppy drive’s media disc does NOT appear on the Haiku desktop after insertion when using Haiku hrev58001 x86_gcc2. The icon should appear, but does not at the moment. The floppy drive unit doesn’t show as mounted (or detected) using the GUI’s menu or file manager - but “appears” when using listusb in the terminal.
A CD icon appears when I use my external CD/DVD drive unit with a media disc.
Clarity: A floppy icon should appear when you insert a floppy media disc - similar result as when you insert a CD/DVD/Blu-ray disc into an external USB CD/DVD/Blu-ray player.
Another correction (using Haiku hrev58001 x86_gcc2):
If you have a floppy media disc in the floppy drive while you boot to desktop - KDL happens. You can test this once the Haiku splash screen icons appear and insert a floppy disc into the floppy drive. If I wait until the Haiku desktop appears and then insert the floppy media disc into the floppy drive - nothing happens (my floppy disc isn’t detected in drive, no green light on the floppy unit, no floppy icon on desktop).
No KDL if I don’t insert the floppy media disc during boot to desktop on this revision of Haiku. A KDL happened doing this same test using Haiku R1B5 TC0 x86_gcc2 (no media disc, happens with an empty floppy drive unit attached).
Floppy disc works fine using Windows or Linux (macOS compatible) and has a few files on it. I read the files and checked for errors.
The floppy drive unit properly initializes as expected. No issues when using the floppy drive with MS Windows.
Now, for that reality check. I tested using my 1997 copy of an old QuarkXPress 4.0 1.44MB floppy disc. So, the floppy disc is 27 years old and still works.
Hi guys. I’m just downloading the Haiku iso, and reading this forum. I’m on my way to the very first install of Haiku. Just read your discussion about floppy issues.
Does it mean, that Haiku will not recognize and use my internal Samsung 3,5" floppy drive?
Yes, there’s no driver for floppy driâes currently, except usb ones. And there is little interest in writing one (in my case, due to lack of suitable hardware for testing it)
Is there a chance to get one from BeOS?
No. The only thing we ever got from BeOS was Tracker when that was opensourced.
Has anyone ported this as a component of floppy driver?
That’s a very sad message for me. Since I moved on from AmigaOS, I’ve been looking for a modern operating system with an up-to-date web browser and solid support for internal 34-pin ribbon floppy drives. Haiku completely took me by surprise - in the best possible way. It gave me real hope that I’ve finally found what I’ve been looking for.
Unfortunately - Haiku didn’t meet my needs, so I’m back to square one.
WARNING: Incredibly clumsy workaround below. This seems to be becoming my specialty on this forum 
Okay, I’m not sure why floppy support is so important to you, but I suppose you have piles of floppies with photos of your kid’s fourth birthday and such. I’ll have to assume that Amiga floppies use a standard FAT partitioning system, otherwise you have even bigger problems.
Dualboot Haiku and FreeDOS. Boot into FD, get the data on the floppies and copy it to the FD disk. Now boot to Haiku, mount the FD Fat32 disk and move it to where you can use it.
Haiku is actually quite good with FAT32 partitions.
I’m really into old data storage media. For years my daily use OS was AmigaOS and then its wonderful clone MorphOS. But their web browsers can’t keep up with current web technology. Additionally the hardware stood still. That’s why I look for an OS with an up-to-date web browser and a true FDD support.
Thank you. I have played some time with FreeDOS. It’s ideal for floppies. Same with WinXP. But dual boot isn’t my goal.
AmigaOS uses it’s own AFS/OFS filesystem for 3,5" HD floppies and formats them to 1,72 MB and is quite good with FAT12, FAT32 as well. But the 1,44 MB FAT12 (LFN) support would be enough for me. No need to worry about Amiga formats.
I’m about to give FreeBSD a try. Some people say it shouldn’t have any issues with internal floppy drives, unlike modern Linux, which does.
Amiga Fast Filesystem (AFFS) and Amiga Original Filesystem (OFS) differ in that, due to an inadvertent redundancy of checksum generation, has slightly less storage capacity and speed in the OFS floppy disk format.
Where things get tricky is that the sync marks occur only once per track, thus freeing up enough space for 2 additional sectors per track on each side of the disk. A 720k FAT formatted floppy stores 880k if reformatted to Amiga track structure. Unfortunately, most PC hardware is so hardwired to having sync marks between each sector, that a typical FAT style floppy drive controller cannot read an Amiga disk. That’s why custom controllers like the Catweasel controller and similar successors emerged. The drive mechanisms were the same but the controller was not.
Oooookay, so it’s about the actual media, not the contents. My apologies, I didn’t get that.
I won’t claim that I understand it, but hey, everyone to their own hobbies. Personally, I am with the faction that wants to push Haiku into the future rather than surviving on BeOS nostalgia.
Why not do both at the same time?
I’d say it’s good to support older technology that some people still want to use,but can’t with other modern systems.
At the same time,it’s good to add newer functionality to make Haiku a great OS for everyday use.
One goal doesn’t exclude the other.