External 5.25 inch floppy drive

[Derek]

Anyone know if there are any external 5.25 inch floppy drives
available or what would be involved in creating one?

I know someone who has just rediscovered a stack of old 5.25 inch,
1.2MB floppies with private information on them, and who now wants to
get to the data before the floppies all go bad.

But it's now a laptop-only household, so installing a 5.25 inch drive
isn't an option.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Anyone know if there are any external 5.25 inch floppy drives
available or what would be involved in creating one?

I know someone who has just rediscovered a stack of old 5.25 inch,
1.2MB floppies with private information on them, and who now wants to
get to the data before the floppies all go bad.

But it's now a laptop-only household, so installing a 5.25 inch drive
isn't an option.

Anyone have any ideas?

Maybe
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q="external+floppy+drive"+"5.25" ?

 

[Beverly Howard [Ms-MVP/MobileDev]]

You might find it easier and cheaper to find an old 1.2 meg drive at a
computer salvage/surplus store and install it into a desktop... really a
pretty easy process if there is a 5.25 bay available... you can also
remove the cd drive for the duration of the project and use that... make
sure you get the ribbon cable with the drive.

Some info that may relate to your process...

Disks that old may already have problems... if there are read problems,
put the disks in a sealed ziplock bag and put the bag into the freezer
overnight, then take each one out individually and try it in the drive.

You sure that the disks are 1.2 meg? (should be on the disk) If not,
remember at the beginning of the computer revolution that there were a
number of different os' around and that floppies from one system were
not readable by another os... for example, almost every different cp/m
mfg used a different disk format, and apple used a drive design that was
incompatable with any non apple computer.

Beverly Howard [MS MVP-Mobile Devices]

 

[Derek]

Maybe
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q="external+floppy+drive"+"5.25" ?

Thanks. I'd already tried that.

All the pages that brought up have at least one 3.5 inch USB "External
floppy drive" and at least one other item that fits in "5.25" inch
drive bays.

There's a lot more "5.25" inch sized stuff than just old floppies.

--
Derek

"So.....I was having dinner with world chess champion Garry Kasporov
and there was a checkered tablecloth. It took him two hours to pass me
the salt." -- Peter Kay

 

[Derek]

You might find it easier and cheaper to find an old 1.2 meg drive at a
computer salvage/surplus store and install it into a desktop... really a
pretty easy process if there is a 5.25 bay available... you can also
remove the cd drive for the duration of the project and use that... make
sure you get the ribbon cable with the drive.

I don't mean to be picky about free help, but I did note that it is a
laptop only household at this point. There are no free bays available.

As for the information about old disks, thanks. I will particularly
remember the freezer tip.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Thanks. I'd already tried that.

All the pages that brought up have at least one 3.5 inch USB "External
floppy drive" and at least one other item that fits in "5.25" inch
drive bays.

There's a lot more "5.25" inch sized stuff than just old floppies.

OK - what about taking the floppies somewhere where there's a) a 5.25" drive
and b) a CD burner/etc? I don't know whether Kinko's would have this, but
some place must.

Or try ebay - looks like MicroSolutions used to make a "backpack"
parallel-attached floppy drive at one point.
As the other reply mentioned, these disks may already be unusable.

 

[philo]

Anyone know if there are any external 5.25 inch floppy drives
available or what would be involved in creating one?

I know someone who has just rediscovered a stack of old 5.25 inch,
1.2MB floppies with private information on them, and who now wants to
get to the data before the floppies all go bad.

But it's now a laptop-only household, so installing a 5.25 inch drive
isn't an option.

Anyone have any ideas?

there are no external 5.25" drives avail that i have ever heard of...
and though it *might* be possible to modify an external 3.5" version...
considering the price is $60 - $100
you;d be way better off going to a 2nd hand store and buying on old 486
for $15 and checking the old floppies on that...
it's not too likely there's anything valuable on them anyway
but who knows

 

[Raymond J. Johnson Jr.]

Anyone know if there are any external 5.25 inch floppy drives
available or what would be involved in creating one?

I know someone who has just rediscovered a stack of old 5.25 inch,
1.2MB floppies with private information on them, and who now wants to
get to the data before the floppies all go bad.

But it's now a laptop-only household, so installing a 5.25 inch drive
isn't an option.

Anyone have any ideas?

Here's one, and it includes a free computer!

http://tinyurl.com/5fesw

 

[Beverly Howard [Ms-MVP/MobileDev]]

laptop only household <<

uh, huh... however, I have tried several times over the past decade to
find external (and affordable) 5.25" floppies without success and a
quick look after you posted your question didn't turn up any 5.25"
although there are many 3.5" externals.

Since this is a "one time" process, I would still point you to using a
desktop with a 5.25 floppy as it would not be expensive if not free to
find an old pc for the duration... install a network card and use the
computer itself as an external drive for your laptop... finish the
project and toss the computer (but keep the drive ;-) or let the person
who has the disks, the need, and, perhaps not the restriction, keep it.

Beverly Howard [MS MVP-Mobile Devices]

 

[Derek]

OK - what about taking the floppies somewhere where there's a) a 5.25" drive
and b) a CD burner/etc? I don't know whether Kinko's would have this, but
some place must.

That has been suggested. And, I think, has actually ended up being the
solution.

Or try ebay - looks like MicroSolutions used to make a "backpack"
parallel-attached floppy drive at one point.
As the other reply mentioned, these disks may already be unusable.

The problem with the removable drive solutions is that they were
products of the 1990s, when 5.25" floppies had long gone out of favor.

Oh, well.

 

[Derek]

uh, huh... however, I have tried several times over the past decade to
find external (and affordable) 5.25" floppies without success and a
quick look after you posted your question didn't turn up any 5.25"
although there are many 3.5" externals.

Your experience mirrors my own.

Since this is a "one time" process, I would still point you to using a
desktop with a 5.25 floppy as it would not be expensive if not free to
find an old pc for the duration... install a network card and use the
computer itself as an external drive for your laptop... finish the
project and toss the computer (but keep the drive ;-) or let the person
who has the disks, the need, and, perhaps not the restriction, keep it.

Now there's something I hadn't thought of. Thanks!

 

[Derek]

Here's one, and it includes a free computer!

http://tinyurl.com/5fesw

LOL! Wiseguy.

 

[Derek]

there are no external 5.25" drives avail that i have ever heard of...
and though it *might* be possible to modify an external 3.5" version...
considering the price is $60 - $100
you;d be way better off going to a 2nd hand store and buying on old 486
for $15 and checking the old floppies on that...
it's not too likely there's anything valuable on them anyway
but who knows

I figured this would be the ultimate option. And it would be cheaper
than paying someone else to do it.

As for being valuable - that's in the eye of the creator. I imagine
that a manuscript of an unpublished work by a famous author would be
valuable, even if on a 5.25" Commodore 64 disk.

Thanks for the help.
--
Derek

"You'd be amazed at the number of people who want to introduce
themselves to you in the men's room. It's the most bizarre part of
this entire thing." - Senator John F. Kerry, speaking on "The Daily
Show" about life as a presidential candidate.

 

[Raymond J. Johnson Jr.]

LOL! Wiseguy.

I wasn't joking. If for $50 or $75 you can do what you want to do, why
not? You're not going to find a 5.25" external drive; how much is the
data worth?

 

[Beverly Howard [Ms-MVP/MobileDev]]

even if on a 5.25" Commodore 64 disk... <<

as you might have surmised, been here a number of times, anthough never
with a Commodore... the most recent to recover accounting data from an
_original_ Compaq to help a severely depressed patient of a friend
(don't ask ;-)

Turned out to be a major project since the unit only had a 360k drive
and the hard drive wouldn't boot... in other words I had to use another
computer with a _360K_ drive, _and_ find a bootable 360k disk along with
Dos3.x drive tools.

Another, where I ultimately had to cry "uncle," was a complete novel on
3.5" Brother WP disks... turns out there _is_ a service that will
convert and that was the only workable option I found.

With cp/m machines, there are still some "disk reader" programs about,
but you need a 360k drive as a 1.2 will not work with them.

That said, I've had better success with cp/m data using PIP (anyone here
that old?) to export files via a serial port... now, somewhere around
here, I still have the PIP command line syntax ;-)

For the immediate future, there will be a box around with both 5.25
drives ready to connect to the network when then next case arrives.

Beverly Howard [MS MVP-Mobile Devices]

 

[Derek]

I wasn't joking. If for $50 or $75 you can do what you want to do, why
not? You're not going to find a 5.25" external drive; how much is the
data worth?

It wasn't the suggestion that prompted my response, but the delivery.

 

[Raymond J. Johnson Jr.]

It wasn't the suggestion that prompted my response, but the delivery.

OK. Now let's see the creationists explain the isolation of the platypus.

 

[Derek]

as you might have surmised, been here a number of times, anthough never
with a Commodore... the most recent to recover accounting data from an
_original_ Compaq to help a severely depressed patient of a friend
(don't ask ;-)

The Commodore example was simply to suggest to Philo that the media on
which the data are stored is not a good indicator of the significance
of the data. A fact which is also demonstrated by your Brother word
processor example.

Outside of that, I'm simply going to bow to your expertise. I may go
to great lengths to recover data, but I'm glad I don't have to go THAT
far.

 

[namniar]

OK. Now let's see the creationists explain the isolation of the platypus.

That was an unfortunate event that occurred after the creation of wine?!?

r.