At 11:12 AM 12/29/98 +0500, you wrote:
>Hi All,
>
>A friend of mine recently accquired an old Toshiba J-3100GT laptop with

>The problem is that if a file is copied into a floppy disk, it cannot be
>read by other machines.

Could the laptop be a Japanesse model sold in Japan originally as opposed
to as a non-Japanesse model sold outside of Japan? The "J" in the model
number makes me think this is the case since most of Toshiba laptops for
the rest of world tend to have a "T" in the model number if a letter is used.

Early (and possibly still) Japanesse 3.5 floppy drives had their own format
that is not the 720kb/1.44mb we know around the world.

If the bios is changeable (ie can he see the 720kb or 1.44mb floppy options
in it) and you can find an approriate floppy from a another laptop you may
be able to swap out the japanesse model for a "world" model.

Be warned that floppies for laptops are very different (no standard for
size, location and size of ribbon cable, power, screws, etc...) and don't
always transfer well to another brand or even among a maker's models at
times.  I've a large selection of older laptops that function well for what
i need (responders on a net and such) but whose floppies have died and I
can't find replacements that fit the space and cabling used.

                         PCBUILD's List Owner's:
                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
                        Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>