I don't think there is such a thing as a PCIe floppy controller, mostly because there is no point to it and hasn't been for quite a while now.

Also, why would I want to maintain bootable floppy support on any modern (2015+ at least) system? there is no point to it anymore. Bios updates are too big for floppy drives anyway and done from within the bios most of the time (integrated update function) or from bootable USB sticks.

BTW Dos compatibility is going away anyway since the UEFI compatibility module is considered obsolete by now and is now slowly being phased out.

Why not use a USB extension cable?

Also, Any of the older Dell laptop floppy modules that have the USB plug on them as well should be bootable no problem. I have a large stack of them. I can double check when I get back home.

I'll check a couple other USB floppy drives I have for bootability as well.

Edit:
I have one of my USB floppy drives with me. Just tested with a Dell Latitude E6420. Only thing I had to do was enable "Diskette Boot" in the BIOS so I could select it on the boot menu.
The USB floppy drive is: Dell UF0002

Just tested on a Dell Precision M4800. Works under legacy boot as well.

Are there any low profile pci floppy controllers that would work with an adapter that would allow you to put pci card to pci express slot?

If you dare operate on that Panasonic drive if you find it:
The 'special sauce' is almost certainly in the USB-floppy adapter in it. So you could see if you could disconnect the USB adapter from the floppy drive. Then connect that adapter to a regular internal floppy drive. And connect the USB directly to an internal USB header. Electrically it's exactly the same as with the external drive, but now with an internal drive that will be indistinguishable from a regular one from outside the case.

Interesting theory. Might be a fun electrical project. It just so happens I have 2 of these things. Bought 1 second hand by accident and then decided to buy a new one so I have both. I could dissect the old one I guess. It definitely is special sauce though.

As cyclone points out, the BIOS is probably the clincher. The board I'm looking at is a Gigabyte GA-970A-D3P and the BIOS seems to be similar to one I've used in the past. I recall that one having "legacy USB" as a boot option. I hope this board has it as well.

I might as well inquire... since there's a chance I won't need to do crossfire (an R9-270X should be enough for most of the games I play), what is the recommendation for a PCI card with a floppy controller?

Gahhhrrrlic wrote:

I might as well inquire... since there's a chance I won't need to do crossfire (an R9-270X should be enough for most of the games I play), what is the recommendation for a PCI card with a floppy controller?

Basically... good luck finding one.

Gahhhrrrlic wrote:

Interesting theory. Might be a fun electrical project. It just so happens I have 2 of these things. Bought 1 second hand by accident and then decided to buy a new one so I have both. I could dissect the old one I guess. It definitely is special sauce though.

As cyclone points out, the BIOS is probably the clincher. The board I'm looking at is a Gigabyte GA-970A-D3P and the BIOS seems to be similar to one I've used in the past. I recall that one having "legacy USB" as a boot option. I hope this board has it as well.

Looking through the manual for that board, it supports booting to legacy devices.
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/549876/Giga … 3p.html?page=42
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/549876/Giga … 3p.html?page=43

You might have to enable the "legacy option ROM" for it to boot to a USB floppy. I'm not entirely sure.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?I … N82E16821104104

Probably hard to find, though.

derSammler wrote:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?I … N82E16821104104

Probably hard to find, though.

More than likely the USB on that combo drive is used ONLY for the memory card reader, while the floppy drive uses a regular floppy interface.

dionb wrote:

The 'special sauce' is almost certainly in the USB-floppy adapter in it. So you could see if you could disconnect the USB adapter from the floppy drive. Then connect that adapter to a regular internal floppy drive. And connect the USB directly to an internal USB header. Electrically it's exactly the same as with the external drive, but now with an internal drive that will be indistinguishable from a regular one from outside the case.

That's the way to go. I bought an external Sabrent USB-floppy drive off of Amazon, took it apart, and took out the adapter. Then I took my internal Mitsumi drive (in a YE-Data memory card reader combo), unplugged the floppy controller & power board that was connected to the drive with a single ribbon cable, and just replaced that with the USB adapter's ribbon cable. Hooked it up to an internal USB header and it worked like a charm. Bootable as legacy (on an MSI board). So that'd be your best bet.

Thank God for Panasonic and the like for supporting defunct technologies for as long as they have!

LS-120 drives connect to IDE interface (40-pin... rather than 34-pin floppy interface) and can use 720K/1440K floppies. Not sure if you'd be able to boot from it though, especially if your board doesn't have IDE (I don't really know what new motherboards have, I am still using a 10-year-old board in my main PC)

torindkflt wrote:

More than likely the USB on that combo drive is used ONLY for the memory card reader, while the floppy drive uses a regular floppy interface.

No, that floppy is driven by USB as well.

derSammler wrote:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?I … N82E16821104104

Probably hard to find, though.

I actually have one of these, and can buy more for people who want them from a local source; you would have to cover shipping from Turkey though. It is registered as a USB floppy drive, and I have had no luck writing boot disk images to it with this device. It works fine as a floppy drive otherwise, though. Of course, forget DOS.