What are all-in-one USB floppy adapters called?

You don't need BIOS support unless you want to boot them AFAIK there's still (optional) support in the linux kernel

Thanks a lot, guys. It looks like it is more complicated than I thought. The FC5025 is a good device but not an "all-in-one". Looks like I better keep the old NT4 machine which has both 3-1/2" and 5-1/4". While that one can also write, read-only would be prefectly fine.

Spehro, there are still data recovery services. Web searches show companies like this:

Sometimes just using an old drive in an old computer isn't enough because the surface of the disk comes off due to age. Then it becomes tough.

Well, I've got at least one 3.5" external USB case, and that has the right connections to plug in a 5.25" mechanism. I should try that, see if I can ditch the old PentiumPro box with multiple floppy drives...

It might be an issue, though, that much floppy-interface software expects to be talking to (that old NEC interface chip- ?UPD765, or somesuch). And the USB generic removable-disk device model might be less flexible.

I think you are not on the same page. I suspect the USB case you have is for hard drives. They have had a standard ATA interface for decades. The 5.25 inch floppy has an interface that is special to that format and not even compatible with other floppy sizes. Same is true of the

No, there was a generation of USB floppy externals that used a 1" high floppy mechanism that took +12V and +5V power, and had the same ribbon connector as was used for generations of 5.25" and 3.5" floppies. It's the legacy 34-position cable from IBM PC 5150 days, 160k drives and up...

The modern USB drives, all use +5V laptop floppy drives (and haven't got the old standard ribbon-cable connector).

On Tue, 29 Dec 2015 19:50:38 -0800 (PST), whit3rd Gave us:

They also have specific drivers since they do not rely on system board BIOSes. So you plugging in a 5,25 for factor drive into the connector that had a 3.5 inch drive on it to a USB interface likely will not work at all without driver support.