5 1/4 Floppy USB Drives

[punahou1]

Has someone figured out a way to integrate a 5 1/4 floppy drive to a USB port? I see a lot of 3 1/2 floppy solutions on the market but it seems like this older format has not been addressed. I have some older data and would prefer avoiding a conversion service or dusting off an older 486 machine. Many thanks for your help.

 

[price_th]

Do you have a 5 1/4 drive? If so, why not just connect it to your system. Many newer MOBO's still have floppy controllers which shold still work with 5 1/4. Can't hurt to try.

 

[Xthealienatorx]

if it has the same cable as a 3 1/2 you should be able to connect it to a usb 3 1/2 connector
i am not not sure though and don't hold me up on it, see what the others say as well

 

[thently]

There is no reason for anyone to do this as they 5 1/4 disks are no longer made. Also any of those disks still in existance most likely are bad by now. I give you a very small chance you disk still even has data on it.

Thent

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi


I looked at the wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk

but I could not see the power connector for 5.25" drives I suspect it uses the standard molex connector with 5v + 12v
(red black black yellow wires) while 3.5" floppy disks only use 5V and a different connector.

The ribbon data cable uses different connectors for 3.5" & 5.25" floppy drives

5.25" includes high density 1.2 Meg (1985) and 360K (1982) versions.
I still have a combined 5.25"+3.5" version sitting in a cupboard should I ever need it but my current motherboard does not have a floppy controller

The chance of getting USB to work is low to zero.

Do you have a 5.25" 1.2M drive to work with ?

regards

Mike Barnes

 

[punahou1]

Do you have a 5 1/4 drive? If so, why not just connect it to your system. Many newer MOBO's still have floppy controllers which shold still work with 5 1/4. Can't hurt to try.

Yes but its on my old machine in storage and I'll probably have to go that route. I was just hoping that there was a usb alternative so that I didn't have to set up the other machine. Thanks anyway

 

[punahou1]

Hi


I looked at the wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk

but I could not see the power connector for 5.25" drives I suspect it uses the standard molex connector with 5v + 12v
(red black black yellow wires) while 3.5" floppy disks only use 5V and a different connector.

The ribbon data cable uses different connectors for 3.5" & 5.25" floppy drives

5.25" includes high density 1.2 Meg (1985) and 360K (1982) versions.
I still have a combined 5.25"+3.5" version sitting in a cupboard should I ever need it but my current motherboard does not have a floppy controller

The chance of getting USB to work is low to zero.

Do you have a 5.25" 1.2M drive to work with ?

regards

Mike Barnes

I actually have both the 1.2 Meg and the 360k drives. Even my 1982 version uses molex. I think I'm just goint to pull my old machine out of storage. I had seen usb conversion kits for the 3.5 floppys and was just wondering if someone took the time to make a 5.25 conversion kit. My guess is that it was never done due to the difference in ribbon cables. On a side note, I was able to access 1982 data about 4 years ago when I had pulled the old 486 out of storage so that floppy lasted a good 26 years lol. Thanks for trying to help.

 

[punahou1]

Best answer selected by punahou1.

 

[saglassburn@scott]

There is no reason for anyone to do this as they 5 1/4 disks are no longer made. Also any of those disks still in existance most likely are bad by now. I give you a very small chance you disk still even has data on it.

Thent

Wrong!
I have original IBM pSystem 5.25 boot floppies that are still usable and reading / writing fine...

 

[sryx]

It turns out there is a 5 1/4" floppy USB controller!(I know right?) Made by a company called Device Side Data called the FC5025 (http://www.deviceside.com/fc5025.html). I'm starting to collect stuff like this over at Gaming Stack Exchange (http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/94868/how-can-i-connect-a-5-1-4-floppy-drive-to-my-modern-pc)

Hi


I looked at the wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk

but I could not see the power connector for 5.25" drives I suspect it uses the standard molex connector with 5v + 12v
(red black black yellow wires) while 3.5" floppy disks only use 5V and a different connector.

The ribbon data cable uses different connectors for 3.5" & 5.25" floppy drives

5.25" includes high density 1.2 Meg (1985) and 360K (1982) versions.
I still have a combined 5.25"+3.5" version sitting in a cupboard should I ever need it but my current motherboard does not have a floppy controller

The chance of getting USB to work is low to zero.

Do you have a 5.25" 1.2M drive to work with ?

regards

Mike Barnes

 

[tom64]

There is no reason for anyone to do this as they 5 1/4 disks are no longer made. Also any of those disks still in existance most likely are bad by now. I give you a very small chance you disk still even has data on it.

Thent

My father had a pile of 5.25 inch disks, but no drive to read them. I found him

a drive, installed it in his pc and restarted it. Not only did the bios accept it,

so did the OS. It was a simple as ' insert 5.25 disk, open it in mycomputer,

click select all files and copy and paste to a usb flash drive.

I was able to reliably read at 25 out of the 30 floppies he had, and the

others were 1.2meg floppies. ( I was using a 360k drive ).

No data errors.

 

[ian-mstm]

It turns out there is a 5 1/4" floppy USB controller!(I know right?) Made by a company called Device Side Data called the FC5025 (http://www.deviceside.com/fc5025.html). I'm starting to collect stuff like this over at Gaming Stack Exchange (http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/94868/how-can-i-connect-a-5-1-4-floppy-drive-to-my-modern-pc)

This is brilliant! I've only just today had a need to pull data from a 5 1/4" floppy (I work in computer forensics) and although I have the drive and the cable, there's no compatible PC here anymore! Thanks for posting the link!

Ian

 

[fbarth123]

Yes but its on my old machine in storage and I'll probably have to go that route. I was just hoping that there was a usb alternative so that I didn't have to set up the other machine. Thanks anyway

I have two 5.25 floppies that I need to get the data off of. i saw you on the forum and want to know if there is a way to copy this data to a disk .

 

[fbarth123]

My father had a pile of 5.25 inch disks, but no drive to read them. I found him

a drive, installed it in his pc and restarted it. Not only did the bios accept it,

so did the OS. It was a simple as ' insert 5.25 disk, open it in mycomputer,

click select all files and copy and paste to a usb flash drive.

I was able to reliably read at 25 out of the 30 floppies he had, and the

others were 1.2meg floppies. ( I was using a 360k drive ).

No data errors.

I have two 5.25 floppys nwith a story I wrote on them. I would like to transfer to a disk of a ubs flash drive. I live about 50 miles north Of Houston tx. do you think You can be of some help to me. thank you for your time. fbarth123@yahoo.com.

 

[fbarth123]

My father had a pile of 5.25 inch disks, but no drive to read them. I found him

a drive, installed it in his pc and restarted it. Not only did the bios accept it,

so did the OS. It was a simple as ' insert 5.25 disk, open it in mycomputer,

click select all files and copy and paste to a usb flash drive.

I was able to reliably read at 25 out of the 30 floppies he had, and the

others were 1.2meg floppies. ( I was using a 360k drive ).

No data errors.

trying to get two 5.25 floppy read and transfer to either flash drive or disk can you help. fbarth123@yahoo.com.

 

[Richard Cosner]

There is no reason for anyone to do this as they 5 1/4 disks are no longer made. Also any of those disks still in existance most likely are bad by now. I give you a very small chance you disk still even has data on it.

Thent

I can assure you that you are 100% wrong, a very high percentage of these disks still have data on them and can be read just fine.

 

[Richard Cosner]

It turns out there is a 5 1/4" floppy USB controller!(I know right?) Made by a company called Device Side Data called the FC5025 (http://www.deviceside.com/fc5025.html). I'm starting to collect stuff like this over at Gaming Stack Exchange (http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/94868/how-can-i-connect-a-5-1-4-floppy-drive-to-my-modern-pc)




Thank you! Finally!

 

[TracyB0616]

It turns out there is a 5 1/4" floppy USB controller!(I know right?) Made by a company called Device Side Data called the FC5025 (http://www.deviceside.com/fc5025.html). I'm starting to collect stuff like this over at Gaming Stack Exchange (http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/94868/how-can-i-connect-a-5-1-4-floppy-drive-to-my-modern-pc)


I am very interested in this usb controller and was wondering if it would be compatible with a cannon MD5511 v6 combo floppy drive that I saw on eBay (here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/CANON-MD5511-V6-Combo-Floppy-Drive-5-25-3-5-/290996485718?pt=US_Floppy_Zip_Jaz_Drives&hash=item43c0bdfe56)? I need to pull lots of data from both 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppy's for my boss who is a writer and has extensive notes and novels on these old floppy discs. I have found the 3.5 usb drives online, but not any 5.25 drives and since he has a large collection, it would be cost prohibitive to pay $5 per disc just to see if it can be accessed.

Thank you for any and all help!

Tracy