BIOS floppy drive limit

Happy Holidays folks. I've got a Dell Dimension 4300, BIOS v A06. I bought a 5.25/1.2M floppy drive to read some old data disks. BIOS (and XP) only see it as a 3.5/1.44, whether it's the only floppy or installed along with the current 3.5 floppy drive. BIOS floppy drive options are (1) 3.5, or (2) OFF.

Is there any way to use the 5.25 drive in this machine? Seems the Dell BIOS feels a 20 year old drive format is ... old! I was hoping at least I could find another XP floppy driver (like XP's flpydisk.sys) which would "force" XP to see the 5.25 as a 5.25 drive.

Thanks.
Tom

 

Welcome to the forum.
I searched and did not find much. This is what I did find.
XP is supposed to accept a 5.25
The belief is that some bios won't accept.
Find a win95/98 that has/will accept the 5.25 and copy the files to 3.5/ CD/ put on HD.

Sorry, maybe someone else has more.