External floppy disk drives

[VK4WDM]

I have some floppy disks (yeah, I know they are just one step up from stone tablets ) that I need to read. Neither of my current compters has a floppy drive. Can you get external floppy drives?

73

Wayne VK4WDM

[VK2ZRH]

Yes Wayne, you can.

I have one, for 3.5-inch floppies, which plugs into a USB port. Got it a while back from some computer store.

Now I want one for 5.25-inch floppies !

73, Roger Harrison VK2ZRH

[VK1FMSY]

Wayne,

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/IBM-External-Flo ... ccessories
Looks like you can get them for around $15.00.

Roger, there used to be portable(?) ones for the Commodore 64's. My local recycling shop might have one. I am happy to go looking if you want me to.

Regards,
Sean
VK1FMSY

[VK6SIX]

A few weeks ago i got one from ebay ..... china.... china.... 2nd time i used it it got a disk caught inside, could not get it out

pulled it apart and it had broken a spring inside... absolute rubbish

in the bin with it

what a complete waste

cheers graham

[VK4QB]

Roger 2ZRH,
I pulled a 5 1/4 floppy drive apart a couple of weeks ago.!!! There's some good bits inside. The reason is that the floppy drive would not read any discs ! The discs had past there use-by date !!! it wasn't only the drive or the discs but the data that was on the discs had faded. I hope yours aren't the same !! It was my original Protel Autotrax and Schmatic . However, I had backed them up onto 3.5 " discs previously, which don't seem to have that trouble.
73
Brian 4QB

[VK4QB]

Roger 2ZRH,
How did you go for a 5 1/2 " floppy drive I have found one here in my junk er- preloved treasures, Condition unknown but was taken out of a working confuser when I trashed it.
73
Brian 4QB

[VK2ZRH]

Still no luck with a 5.25-inch USB drive.

73, Roger Harrison VK2ZRH

[VK4QB]

Hi Roger,
Let me give you mine, if its any use.
Brian 4QB

[VK4QB]

Woops Roger,
You want a USB 5 1/4" Type ? I think they were well before USB ???
Brian 4QB

[VK2CSW]

So finding an USB 8" 340k Floppy Drive might be a lot cause?

[VK2ZRH]

Well. I have a (working) 5.25-inch drive suited to a PC-AT. But . . . my present desktop PC system seems to have a different bus (certainly, the connectors and cabling are rather different).

The floppies are approaching their "natural use-by date". The stuff on them that I want are text-based files, rather than .exe.

I threw in the USB interface tongue-in-cheek

73, Roger Harrison VK2ZRH

[VK4QB]

Hi Roger,
There was a mob in Melbourne I think, that could get stuff off old discs any format but I cant remember the name or where .
Best of luck
Brian 4QB

[VK2ZRH]

There are a number of "data recovery" businesses around, but generally for HDD recovery, or high density removeable disks like ZIP and JAZ. But not old floppies.

I'd still like to work out how to attach/patch the 5.25-inch drive I have into my present desktop PC.

That has a higher priority than seeing if I can fire up the old ZIP drive.

73, Roger Harrison VK2ZRH

[vk1da]

Roger, I have a PC with a 1.2 MB 5.25" drive in it. How many disks do you want to transfer to some other medium?

It also has a 100 MB Iomega ZIP drive it it. A real museum piece. I think it needs some internal reconfig depending on what bits I want to work, but it's all doable. I could also convert it to 3.5" floppy or CD.

Interesting that many of my 5.25" disks are 20 years old and still readable. Some 3.5" disks are half that age and are useless. And the hard disk in my wife's laptop is cactus after only a few years.

And some of the CDRs people warned me would only last several years before being damaged by light, are still ok.