Looking for those Swiss Army knife USB pods that can connect old floppy drives and old hard drives to a modern PC to read files. In case an old
5-1/2 floppy comes along. Can't find them. They had the power cabling and all. What are they called?This would allow me to send the big old NT4 PC to the recylers, it's my last one that has a 5-1/4" drive and sometimes clients have ancient data on those which we need.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Maybe not all in one, but
Also a USB to SATA converter, supports HD's SATA and IDE drives. I have one for emergencies. As well as a USB to 3.5" floppy.
Cheers
My guess(tm) is "5.25" to USB adapter".
I had the same problem recently trying to read a 5.25" floppy. I soon discovered that the BIOS on most modern machines does not have
360K/1.2MB drives listed. I set it to 1.44MB (3.5") and attached a common 34 wire FD ribbon cable, but it didn't work. I found some controller cards with floopy disk controllers, but since the modern machines are all PCI, none would fit. I ended up building up an old 486 motherboard just so I could read and write 5.25" floppies[1].I don't think you're going to find a 5.25" floppy drive with a USB connector or adapter. The 3.5" variety are common enough, but not
5.25". If you find something that works, I would be interested.[1] I've been saving 5.25" drives for the purpose for years. However, when I built the 486 machine and tested the drives, most of them were out of alignment or just plain dead. Out of about 15 drives, some of which were new in the box, only 2 worked.
-- Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
Maybe this for 5.25"?
There are generic USB IDE/SATA/PATA (pick the connector that fits) pods available for hard drives. Startech, EZ Gig and many more. Some come with cloning software. Some come with a shiny case.
-- Grizzly H.
$55.25/ea. Ouch.
-- Jeff Liebermann snipped-for-privacy@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D
The one I have here is called an "IDE to USB adapter". Googling that brought up a big list of purchasable units that look like they would work.
I don't recall ever seeing a 5.25" floppy drive that had an IDE interface. IDE is 40 pins, floppies use 34 pins, and the 34-pin floppy cable carries a rather lower-level sort of control signal set.
Or just save $55+shipping and keep the old computer. You know it works already.
On Mon, 28 Dec 2015 11:32:08 -0800, Jeff Liebermann Gave us:
All the emulators on that page are relating to 3.5 inch drives, not
5,25 inch.At least that is what I saw and read.
On Mon, 28 Dec 2015 11:41:52 -0800, Jeff Liebermann Gave us:
USB to 3.5" floppy
quick glance $12 on Amazon
Instead of retarded poem attempts maybe you should sharpen your web search prowess.
Den tirsdag den 29. december 2015 kl. 00.17.55 UTC+1 skrev DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno:
3.5" are easy to find, he asked for 5-1/4" they are much more rare-Lasse
THese are the wrong diection anyway. They are meant to replace a Floppy with a USB flash drive in older machines.
Cheers
On Mon, 28 Dec 2015 15:29:37 -0800 (PST), Lasse Langwadt Christensen Gave us:
I know that idiot. Read my first response. THIS response was a reference to the $55 price some lame ass linked for him.
Den tirsdag den 29. december 2015 kl. 01.51.48 UTC+1 skrev DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno:
That $55 board that Jeff pointed to actually does 5-1/4
so what was you point?
-Lasse
On Mon, 28 Dec 2015 16:59:38 -0800 (PST), Lasse Langwadt Christensen Gave us:
Not according to the linked site.
Learn to read, putz.
USB to SATA, 3.5" IDE, 2.5" IDE and even 1.8" IDE kits that come with power supply and necessary attachments are still around, but even they are getting more difficult to find now.
You can get 3.5" floppy drives in USB form, but I don't think you will ever find a USB to 5.25" floppy drive or cable adapter.
Any modern computer BIOS wouldn't know what the hell to do with one even if you could plug it in.
I haven't seen/used 5.25" floppies in at least 15 years. If you have anyone with any valuable data on one, you better grab an old 486 or early pentium era machine with a 5.25" drive in it from a thrift store; the window of opportunity is pretty much shut on the ability to read them at this point.
Best of luck,
S Sinzig.
Den tirsdag den 29. december 2015 kl. 02.01.55 UTC+1 skrev DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno:
I think you need glasses,
on the page: FC5025 USB 5.25" Floppy Controller Device Side Data's FC5025 USB 5.25" floppy controller plugs into any computer's USB port and enables you to attach a 5.25" floppy drive
-Lasse
Cool Find! Read-only though - it would be beneficial if you had a huge number of disks for archival or data recovery.
S.
Y'er right. I got it backwards, which is somewhat understandable considering the strange English on the web page. Looks like it's meant to replace an existing floppy disk drive with USB, that's in something like a MIDI synthesizer or an NC controller.
Review and video of the previously mentioned FC-5025 USB to 5.25" adapter: Read only, no write. Oh well.
By 2010, computer motherboards are rarely manufactured
used with an external USB floppy disk drive, but USB
are rare to non-existent. These formats are usually handled by older equipment.
I did some more digging and found the USB97CFDC USB floppy controller chip: Supports 640K, 720K, 1.44M, 1.2M Windows 98 J, and 1.2M NEC DOS 6.x Formats I other words, it should be possible to convince a USB to 3.5" interface board that uses this chip to work with a 1.2MB 5.25" drive. Pin 63 looks like the like programming pin.
I was going to go further with this by disassembling a Teac FD-05PUW external 3.5" USB floppy drive. However, when I looked inside, I found that there was no interface board and that the USB cable is wired directly to the floppy disk drive PCB. Oh well.
Grumble (It's still the season).
-- Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
5.25"? Wow- people are trying to get $150+ for those drives on eBay.
The 3-1/2" ones are not as rare.. but getting there. There are emulators for those of us stuck with equipment that is built around a floppy.
Here's a review on the one that Cydrome leader suggested from about 6 years ago.
I think I've got one or two working machines that still have 3-1/2" drives but nothing I know still works with a 5-1/4".
--sp
-- Best regards, Spehro Pefhany Amazon link for AoE 3rd Edition: http://tinyurl.com/ntrpwu8 Microchip link for 2015 Masters in Phoenix: http://tinyurl.com/l7g2k48
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