External 5.25 FLOPPY?

[bohman]

hey there, thanks for any help you can provide.

my mfg. facility has some important data we want to get off of a bunch of 5.25'' floppys and store onto a more current format.

anyone know of an external 5.25'' floppy drive, maybe with USB?

if not i guess i can score some brownie points by making one.

thanks,

bohman

 

[evongugg]

Ebay still sells the drives.

 

[evongugg]

Here is the floppy cable:

Universal Floppy Cable

http://cgi.ebay.com/Universal-Floppy-Cable-3-5-5-25-at-BOTH-ends-NEW_W0QQitemZ230279889568QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item230279889568&_trkparms=72%3A1077%7C39%3A1%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C240%3A1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&timeout=1218815280828

 

[bohman]

Ebay still sells the drives.

thanks, will have to check ebay after work, blocked here.

 

[bobjmoran]

Those old floppies didn't have much life to them. In my experience I have learned just because you can read the filenames off of them, it doesn't mean the files aren't corrupted somewhere on the floppy. If you want those files, the time to copy the files is now.
The best and quickest way to get those files is through dos, since the constant reading that Windows Explorer does may wear these old things out. Create a folder named Floppy at the root of C: in Windows Explorer, OR stick in the floppy, open a dos window and do these commands that will make the folder, and copy all the files.

md c:\floppy
copy a:\*.* c:\floppy

change the "a:" drive letter above to the letter of your 5¼ drive.

And lets just hope that they're in a format that your Windows system can read. There were a lot of different formats for 5¼ floppies back then.