External 5.25" Floppy Drive?

[Eric]

Hi,

Don't laugh, but has anyone come across such an animal that will work with
modern PC's?
Or has anyone cannibalized a 3.5" external floppy and used the guts to get a
5.25" floppy talking?

I would need it to work with everything from 360K SS/SD to 1.2MB DS/DD
floppies.

I have a ton of 5.25" floppies that I want to get archived onto a CD before
they are lost to time. Believe it or not, almost all of a large sample
that I tested are still readable. The old 5.25" drives themselves are still
functioning fine. (They were used TRS-80's Cocos, not PC's, back in the
day.)

Can always just stick one of the 5.25" drives into a PC interally, of
course, but thought putting together something external would be convienent.

Thanks...

 

[philo]

Hi,

Don't laugh, but has anyone come across such an animal that will work with
modern PC's?
Or has anyone cannibalized a 3.5" external floppy and used the guts to get a
5.25" floppy talking?

I would need it to work with everything from 360K SS/SD to 1.2MB DS/DD
floppies.

I have a ton of 5.25" floppies that I want to get archived onto a CD before
they are lost to time. Believe it or not, almost all of a large sample
that I tested are still readable. The old 5.25" drives themselves are still
functioning fine. (They were used TRS-80's Cocos, not PC's, back in the
day.)

Can always just stick one of the 5.25" drives into a PC interally, of
course, but thought putting together something external would be

convienent.



I've never seen a USB, 5.25" floppy...It might possibly work using the
electronics from an external 3.5" drive...
but it would sure be kind of messy looking.
Considering the external floppy drives are maybe $50 or so and that it may
not work anyway...
I think I'd just install the 5.25" floppy drive in your present machine
(If you don;t like the way it looks, you can always remove it once you;ve
backed up all your old data)

 

[Halt Who Goes There]

Yea a 3 1/2" External Floppy is a VERY popular item with folks who know
what a floppy is and have the latest PC's.
They cost about 29 bucks and plug into a USB 2 port on your PC.
Probobly available at WallyMart, Tiger Direct, Radio Shack etc.

 

[BigJim]

I don't think there is any external 5.25 dives, but if you have a floppy
drive controller on the board you
can run the data and power cable to it and it would work. Just have to set
it up in the bios.

 

[Eric]

convienent.

I've never seen a USB, 5.25" floppy...It might possibly work using the
electronics from an external 3.5" drive...
but it would sure be kind of messy looking.
Considering the external floppy drives are maybe $50 or so and that it may
not work anyway...
I think I'd just install the 5.25" floppy drive in your present machine
(If you don;t like the way it looks, you can always remove it once you;ve
backed up all your old data)

Hi,

Yeah, I'm not sure if it would work either. Since posting, I forgot that I
had an old 486 stashed away somewhere in the basement. I'll just slap one
of the 5.25" drives into that old klunker and use it not only to transfer
all this old stuff onto new media but also run a Coco emulator on it...

 

[sandy58]

Hi,

Don't laugh, but has anyone come across such an animal that will work with
modern PC's?
Or has anyone cannibalized a 3.5" external floppy and used the guts to get a
5.25" floppy talking?

I would need it to work with everything from 360K SS/SD to 1.2MB DS/DD
floppies.

I have a ton of 5.25" floppies that I want to get archived onto a CD before
they are lost to time. Believe it or not, almost all of a large sample
that I tested are still readable. The old 5.25" drives themselves are still
functioning fine. (They were used TRS-80's Cocos, not PC's, back in the
day.)

Can always just stick one of the 5.25" drives into a PC interally, of
course, but thought putting together something external would be convienent.

Thanks...

I'm not laughing..............at you. I'm laughing at MY reactions a
few years ago when a buddy asked me to fix his "floppy". I was
totally intrigued by the sight of this, more so what went INTO it. It
WAS floppy!
AND it actually WORKED! The actual floppy reminded me of these funny
"talking cards" bought on holiday at Blackpool. I'm glad you have
still the original drive. It will soon be a valuable collector's
item.
Good luck, Eric.

 

[Ed Medlin]

Hi,

Don't laugh, but has anyone come across such an animal that will work with
modern PC's?
Or has anyone cannibalized a 3.5" external floppy and used the guts to get
a 5.25" floppy talking?

I would need it to work with everything from 360K SS/SD to 1.2MB DS/DD
floppies.

I have a ton of 5.25" floppies that I want to get archived onto a CD
before they are lost to time. Believe it or not, almost all of a large
sample that I tested are still readable. The old 5.25" drives themselves
are still functioning fine. (They were used TRS-80's Cocos, not PC's,
back in the day.)

Can always just stick one of the 5.25" drives into a PC interally, of
course, but thought putting together something external would be
convienent.

Thanks...

You could try this..........
http://ask.metafilter.com/19449/How-to-make-an-external-525-floppy-drive .
It is all I could find.


Ed

 

[Eric]

You could try this..........
http://ask.metafilter.com/19449/How-to-make-an-external-525-floppy-drive .
It is all I could find.

Hi,

Hmm, I was just going to stick one of the 5.25" drives into an old 486
klunker, but I'm inspired by that thread.

I'm going to build a 5.25" external floppy drive, USB noneless. Why? Why
not.

The 5.25" floppy drives that I have are already in an external case with
it's own power supply. They are standard DS/DD PC 5.25" floppy drives used
with a TRS-80 Coco. The controller interface is a ROM cartridge pack that
plugged into a port on the Coco. A cable connected the two.

What I'm not sure of yet and will have to research is if the FDD controller
inside one of these (modern) external 3.5" drives can control a 5.25"
floppy. I wouldn't be surprised if these external 3.5" drives used one of
the same FDD controller chipsets found on motherboards. If so, it "should"
be able to control a 5.25" drive. I'll just rip the PCB out of one of these
external drives, which probably has both the FDD controller and the USB
controller onboard, and mount it inside the old 5.25" case. It "may" just
work! Having found some 3.5" external floppy drives for $20 and less, may
just order one and try it out...

 

[Eric]

I'm not laughing..............at you. I'm laughing at MY reactions a
few years ago when a buddy asked me to fix his "floppy". I was
totally intrigued by the sight of this, more so what went INTO it. It
WAS floppy!
AND it actually WORKED! The actual floppy reminded me of these funny
"talking cards" bought on holiday at Blackpool. I'm glad you have
still the original drive. It will soon be a valuable collector's
item.
Good luck, Eric.

LOL, yeah. I remember being excited after getting the second 5.25" drive.
At the same time, I came across how to modify the drive so that the Coco
could see both sides by soldering a jumper. With both sides readable and
the ROM modified to allow the use of 40 tracks, total storage space became a
whopping 720K! I remember thinking that was more space than I'd ever need.
Ran a BBS on them even!