Updated on April 19, 2021
Who still carries a floppy drive in their computer system these days? Floppy drives have been pushed away towards for more favorable CD/DVDs, flash drives, and hard drives.
But floppy drives still carry a critical function that the other three cannot perform in older systems. Flashing firmware. Floppy drives can be used for emergency boots in aging systems that lack support for other types of bootable media. It is used for BIOS updates or repair if the BIOS becomes corrupted. Certain industries still use equipment that require floppy disks such as the music, theatre, the US Government, sewing industries, and many more. They all use older technological equipment that would prove to costly to transfer the data information to a new platform.
The Teac FD235HFC929 is an excellent example of a good floppy drive. The FD-235 series from TEAC provides outstanding performance in a nice, compact form. The floppy drive stands at one inch in height, weighs only 235g, and is so efficient that it requires a mere +5V DC power supply. It 
uses the standard 3.5″ floppy media.
A huge benefit to owning this floppy drive is that it can read older floppy disks. Manufactured in 1991, the FD235HFC929 was created with much better quality than the FDD’s manufactured in the Mid/late 90’s. The quality of FDD’s manufactured during that time period took a a huge dive. If you use newer FDD’s with a vintage floppy disk, you may experience loss of data or be unable to read the data at all. Floppy drives such as this created in the 80’s and early 90’s are much more reliable for your floppy disk reading needs.
FD235HFC929 Technical Specifications
Table of Contents
| Safety standard | UL, CSA & TÜV |
| Operation modes | 2MB mode Write and read |
| 90mm (3.5-inch) disk used | High density(2HD) |
| Unformatted data capacity | 2M bytes |
| Data transfer rate | 500k bits/s |
| Disk rotational speed | 300 RPM |
| Track density | 5.3track/mm (135tpi) |
| Required power | +5V single (4.5 ~ 5.5V) |
| Signal output driver | Open collector TTL |
| Input signal pull-up | 1kÙ ±5%, unremovable |
| Customer selectable strap | 8 selections (DS0, DS1, RY34, DC34, HO2, HI2, HA, FG) |
| Interface connector | 34 pin right-angled header connector |
| Power connector | Equipped |
| Other optional function | Not equipped |
| Function setting at delivery | 1. Strap setting 1.1 DS1 : DRIVE SELECT 1 on pin 12 1.2 DC34 : DISK CHANGE on pin 34 1.3 HA : Automatic density setting for 2DD (1MB) disk or 2HD (2MB) disk. 1.4 FG : Frame is electrically shorted to DC 0V. 2. Other interface setting 2.1 Pin2 : Open 3. Other function setting 3.1 LED turn on condition: DRIVE SELECT 3.2 Motor rotating condition: MOTOR ON 3.3 Ready and seek-complete gate (full-mask) for INDEX and READ DATA output pulses. 3.4 Auto-chucking at disk installation 3.5 Auto-recalibration at power on |
The Teac Floppy Drive – FD235HFC929 would be a great replacement for any legacy system. It also has a variety of jumper configurations necessary for your needs. A PDF file of the jumper configurations for the FD235HFC929 model is available online here.
1 reply on “Teac Floppy Drive – FD235HFC929”
Hello I have an interest in Teac Floppy Drive – FD235HFC929.
What value Drive and shipping to Brazil by USPS?
ZIP Code: 09111340
thank you,
Valdir Chagas