internal usb floppy wanted...again

I sure would like to find a supplier for internal usb floppy. As a system builder who just changed from a discontinued Intel DG33FB motherboard to a floppy-controlerless Intel DG45ID motherboard, with the occasional customer that still wants an internal floppy drive, it would be nice to be able to provide that. I've scoured the 'net and found nothing but vague references and people making fun of the idea.

I'm surprised there is not an internal USB floppy drive in production. I can't be the only one trying to support customers who want legacy junk on new computers. Somebody could just make an internal bracket for one of the external drives on the market. Just add a couple screw holes to your design and throw in an adapter that changes an internal USB header into a USB A Female port (or two, the second one available for ReadyBoost) and sell at least several thousand units to people like me. Or you could market an internal USB card reader + floppy that uses just one USB header. I'd even buy that for myself (I still find a use for an FDD once in a while).

I'm with that guy who got made fun of. Why bother with a 34-pin cable anymore? I think the manufacturers are just trying to burn up their stockpiles.

Anyway, if anybody has any ideas about how to provide an internal floppy to my customers without an onboard controller, let me know.

And be nice!

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Sorry, I haven't seen an internal USB floppy drive. Could you/your clients use an external usb floppy drive. They work great, they show up just like a regular A: drive in Explorer. You can even boot from them. I just used one to do a BIOS update. They are less than $30 and one drive can just be passed around as needed or you could even share one on a network to allow multiple people easy access.

Good luck

Reply to johng24601

i would offer a coupon saying "free data recovery from your old floppies", or just give them the external usb version. after looking for a while im not seeing an I/O card like there used to be way back when . Not seeing USB to floppy adapters that would make the process easier... so good luck

------------------------------ If you don't know what OS/2 is, you don't understand.
Reply to rockbyter

You could probably find an external USB floppy drive that's a standard form facotr and pull the drive out of it's housing. Would be a tad missionous though!

Reply to mi1ez

No one makes a PCI floppy controller, the only internal floppy controllers are old ISA units.
The need for floppies is just not great enough for a company to go to the expense of design and fabrication of an internally mounted external UBS floppy drive.
External USB floppy drive housings vary from maker to maker, design to design. It would be difficult to make an internal adapter that would work with all of the many external USB units available.

Now I know Intel is good and all, but what I would do is use another motherboard for the customer that HAS to have an internal floppy drive.

Another option is the acquisition of the Intel DG33FB from a retail outlet like http://www.pcsforeveryone.com/Product/Intel/BOXDG33FBC

Reply to bobbknight

Thanks for the suggestions, although I can't say there's much new here.

Obviously I'm going to suggest the external floppy for those that need them if there is no internal solution. That's what I do personally at home (my work machine has an internal floppy).

Intel can't be beat for warranty service, so I'm sticking with them. Also it's just impractical to go shopping around the 'net for parts from any old vendor when you buy the quantity and variety of parts my company buys. If we can't get it through the channel we're not going to standardize on it.

I haven't found "an external USB floppy drive that's a standard form factor" either. They do have low profile legacy FDD's with card readers that could physically fit in one bay. I think a person could take that and an external USB FDD apart, combine them and make it work. I have seen compact USB header to USB A Female adapters for ReadyBoost. It's just that now you're talking $80 for an internal floppy. Even the die-hards will pause on that.

Reply to sonnyp

There you go! They do exist and / but have the benefit / disadvantage of an integrated card reader.....

However they do seem a tad pricey, plus most places are showing low stock

http://www.alvio.com/xABK_PID10548 [...] rives.html

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6821104104

http://en.toppreise.ch/index.php?a=139535

Hope that helps....

Reply to will_chellam

They are not showing you picture of the back.

I have one of those. They have a floppy connector on the back and a USB connector for the memory cards. You still need a floppy controller on your motherboard.

Message edited by evongugg on 09-17-2008 at 08:23:26 PM

------------------------------ Google is your friend and Bob's your uncle
Reply to evongugg

Well spotted, my bad....

In my haste I assumed someone had bothered to design and build a sensible product rather than just supergluing two separate devices together.....

Guess thats why im not in business

Reply to will_chellam

I have no trouble with Intel, they have the most stable boards around.
It's just to bad they decided to save 8 cents by removing the FDD header and circuit.
Man if I had customers still hitting F6 to load drivers into NT or 2K, I would up sell them.
Xp or 2.3K I would sell them a slip of the os on their machine with the drivers needed.
Data on floppies, man that's just to risky.

If Merisel or one of the other distributors are your channel, I really would look at another board for the customer few and far between that want an internal floppy.
I know margins can be tight, but really your time is also valuable and I'm sure you can work a deal for a good board and fast replacement if needed.

Reply to bobbknight

I'm hoping someone from Intel will read this:

"Classic" Series motherboards should be just that:
(or at least they should implement one that is)

A Floppy Controller, a Parallel Port (for printers) and a Serial Port (for modems) and ps2 ports for keyboard and mouse.

Why did Intel decide to take the "classic" out of classic????

Reply to bluandy

You can just use a super drive. They read floppy disks and have a IDE connector not a FDD.

http://www.weirdstuff.com/cgi-bin/item/19022

and if you don't have IDE:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6815158081

Reply to Reichling

I have the same problem. Most of my customers still run DOS.
I think I have found two possible solutions.

And I am still looking for a more elegant solution than these two I offer.

Buslink has a FDD1 3.5" USB floppy drive that is an external unit that looks like they just used a plain floppy drive and encased it in an external USB enclosure.

I have not tried this yet but I will try cracking one open to see how they built this unit. Maybe with a cable swap I can use it to test and see if it can work in my application. Cost of this now obsolete product from Buslink is in the low $50.00 range.

My second solution, is an adaptor that goes on the back of the floppy and the adaptor connects to an internal USB header. It seems to be available in Taiwan. I am going to order two, and try to find out who actually makes this device.

I suspect that this adaptor is the one used in the Buslink product.

I am open to suggestions.....

Message quoted 2 times

Reply to Larry63

Larry63 wrote :

I have the same problem. Most of my customers still run DOS.
I think I have found two possible solutions.

And I am still looking for a more elegant solution than these two I offer.

Buslink has a FDD1 3.5" USB floppy drive that is an external unit that looks like they just used a plain floppy drive and encased it in an external USB enclosure.

I have not tried this yet but I will try cracking one open to see how they built this unit. Maybe with a cable swap I can use it to test and see if it can work in my application. Cost of this now obsolete product from Buslink is in the low $50.00 range.

My second solution, is an adaptor that goes on the back of the floppy and the adaptor connects to an internal USB header. It seems to be available in Taiwan. I am going to order two, and try to find out who actually makes this device.

I suspect that this adaptor is the one used in the Buslink product.

I am open to suggestions.....

i don't say this often, but omg, i was looking for that piece that you just described. did it work?

there is this crazy electronics museum around the corner from me, and i just picked up 3 identical 9.1 GB hard drives and an old floppy for $5. i'm a n00b, but i think that i can use the HDs with this on a dp45sg mobo.

looking at how many bugs there are when it comes to building a computer piece by piece, it seems like it wouldn't hurt to have a floppy running to update firmware and such, but maybe it's just that i got used to updating firmware that way.

anyways, anticipating a reply on to how this worked out for you

Reply to z0wb13

Larry63 wrote :

My second solution, is an adaptor that goes on the back of the floppy and the adaptor connects to an internal USB header. It seems to be available in Taiwan. I am going to order two, and try to find out who actually makes this device.

Can you inform the rest of us where you found this adapter?

I have been searching for an adaptor like this for days and have had no success in finding one.

Reply to kohenkatz

I have just received the same Intel motherboard, then wasted a few hours searching for "internal SATA floppy" and for "internal USB floppy: Nope; all the hits for "internal USN floppy" produce a combination USB media card reader and floppy drive. Nice idea, but the floppy is 34-pin; only the media card reader is USB. I guess I'll have to go with the external USB floppy and try to jam it into a jerry-rigged 3.5-inch frame of some kind. In the meantime, to test the motherboard with Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD) I'm using an SATA DVD drive.

I also have a new EVGA motherboard that has NO 4-pin CD audio header. The manufacturer's flack assures me that "nobody" makes DVD/CD readers with 4-pin audio output. Really? Nobody? Or is it to do with the 7 cents saved by leaving out the 4-pin audio header on the board. How much did they save by leaving the plastic frame off the COM1 connector? Another 7 cents maybe?

There are plenty of SATA-to-PATA (40-pin) adapters available CHEAP, many bidirectional. Where does one find an SATA-to-floppy (34-pin) adapter?

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to oldensign

oldensign wrote :

I have just received the same Intel motherboard, then wasted a few hours searching for "internal SATA floppy" and for "internal USB floppy: Nope; all the hits for "internal USN floppy" produce a combination USB media card reader and floppy drive. Nice idea, but the floppy is 34-pin; only the media card reader is USB. I guess I'll have to go with the external USB floppy and try to jam it into a jerry-rigged 3.5-inch frame of some kind. In the meantime, to test the motherboard with Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD) I'm using an SATA DVD drive.

I also have a new EVGA motherboard that has NO 4-pin CD audio header. The manufacturer's flack assures me that "nobody" makes DVD/CD readers with 4-pin audio output. Really? Nobody? Or is it to do with the 7 cents saved by leaving out the 4-pin audio header on the board. How much did they save by leaving the plastic frame off the COM1 connector? Another 7 cents maybe?

There are plenty of SATA-to-PATA (40-pin) adapters available CHEAP, many bidirectional. Where does one find an SATA-to-floppy (34-pin) adapter?

Reply to gakingjr

Would the EVGA board happen to be e758-TR (132-BL-E758-TR)?

I'm convinced that manufacturers look for things they can change, just to make the devices I have obsolete.

Reply to gakingjr

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