Those drives can be heavy, $15-20 shipped is a good price especially for the 360K drives which are older.

I recently searched for a normal, HD 5.25" drive for a pc on EU ebay. Nothing rare like a DD drive but I got the same impression. I was expecting many results and only got a few with what I consider as crazy prices. I wish I could find one at a total of $20, the cheapest I found was double that, plus shipping.

.

Found one in a Pentium-100 PC I bought for a beer. Put it in the drawer and never seen ever since.

5.25" drives are just one of those things that are kind of rare to find for a good price in regards to availability on the marketplace like eBay (mostly because of shipping as they are heavy), but they are not so rare if you could look through everyone's basements, garages, and storage sheds 🤣

My point is, in my experience, you will have to look (very hard) locally and keep your eyes open to find them...and once you do, you can usually get them for a good price...heck sometimes you can get them free...it's just one of those pc items that get recycled and us retro computer lovers missing out on the chance to save them.

But I have to agree with some here that say $15 - $20 with shipping included is a very good price for a 5.25" drive...in my opinion, those that are gouging are selling for $50 and up for just regular drives. I usually see good 5.25" drives on eBay for $15-$20 without shipping included if I'm lucky.

Scroll back a few years and NO ONE was selling 5 1/4" drives for less than $40~$50. :P

The only thing you have to be concerned with is WHY you want one and whether it's a 360K or 1.2M drive. The thing is, 360K formatted disks can read and write fine in a 1.2M drive, but anything written by a 1.2M drive to a 360K disk won't read very well in a 360K drive, so be cautious of that if you intend to write to any disks. Naturally though, a 360K drive won't have this issue but won't be able to read/write 1.2M disks.

Also, just because you find a drive doesn't mean the computer you intend to put it into will be capable of utilizing it. Not only does the BIOS and OS have to support the drive, but the motherboard and power supply both have to have hookups for it.

So yeah, just be aware of what you're getting yourself into if you plan to get one of these things. :B

Doesn't Interlink work on the Jr.? A serial cable should set you back less than a floppy drive, and IIRC the software can install itself remotely (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

Put it in perspective, 5.25" become obsolete around what 1990? 88?, 25 years ago and consider that you could still buy a mainstream pc with a 1.44MB disk less than 10 years of course so of course its fair to assume a high price for that kind of drive.

dirkmirk wrote:

Put it in perspective, 5.25" become obsolete around what 1990? 88?, 25 years ago and consider that you could still buy a mainstream pc with a 1.44MB disk less than 10 years of course so of course its fair to assume a high price for that kind of drive.

New pc's were sold until the mid 90's that sometimes did have a 5.25" drive, they hadn't gone extinct that long ago. I have 5.25" floppy disks given for free by computer magazines dated 1994! Anyway the thing is the analogy, you can probably buy a whole pc of that era or a single floppy drive for 40-50 pounds people are selling them now (at least in EU that I'm aware of current prices). I get your point and you're right, but for me they're still too expensive for some reason, maybe small availability?

It also has to be worth it to list something on eBay. With fees, shipping and time spent listing / packaging anything < $50 is a waste of time IMO.

King_Corduroy wrote:

Hey I was just wondering, are 5.25" floppy diskette drives really as rare as ebay would suggest?

Yes. Yes they are. I found the last one in my town (and had to haggle the SOB down from $50). The problem I had was that the 5-1/4 disks I'd carefully saved over the years (older LucasArts and Sierra Online games) became completely unreadable.

If you can find one on ebay that isn't beat to hell, or full of that grimy cigarette gunk, for a cheap price go for it. Just hope you have an older mobo with a floppy connector.

It's looking more feasible to buy a old PC from ebay with oen than an individual drive

Once you do get your 5.25" drive, IMAGE YOUR FLOPPIES LIKE THE WIND 🤣 I sued Resqflpy. My floppies still worked fortunately. Decades-old cardboard boxes are amazing!

VileRancour wrote:

Doesn't Interlink work on the Jr.? A serial cable should set you back less than a floppy drive, and IIRC the software can install itself remotely (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

Maybe, but I'd need a serial to PCjr proprietary cable adapter since the PCjr has non standard ports for everything.

All the cables connect using these strange USB looking square plugs.

The PCjr also does not have a 2 way parralel port. I have a parralel port with the JrCadet expansion car but that is mearly for printers.

The real ironic part of all of this is that I have an older next door nieghbor who is a bit strange. I happened to notice a few weeks ago that he has an old PC in his shed with a 5.25" floppy disk drive in it so I asked him if he would sell it to me but he refuses to on the grounds that it's nostolgic for him. Yet there it sits grimy and buried in boxes. 🙁

Really gets my goat that he's just going to let it gather dust.

King_Corduroy wrote:

The real ironic part of all of this is that I have an older next door nieghbor who is a bit strange. I happened to notice a few weeks ago that he has an old PC in his shed with a 5.25" floppy disk drive in it so I asked him if he would sell it to me but he refuses to on the grounds that it's nostolgic for him. Yet there it sits grimy and buried in boxes. 🙁

Really gets my goat that he's just going to let it gather dust.

Hoarders are like that. Collectors will part with some of their collection to be able to buy more, or rarer things.

Hoarders just keep EVERYTHING.

Plus, the dude sounds like an asshat.

🤣 Yeah he really is but not in the "get off my lawn!" way he's more of a weirdo who is really self centered. Anytime you go to help him (most of the time cause he is a fucking idiot) he does something to kick sand in your face right after you finish helping. This is pretty much another one of those incidents, he somehow managed to topple a bunch of heavy plywood sheets on top of himself and was yelling for help while I happened to be nearby so I ran into his shed and lifted it off of him. That's when I noticed an old 80's monitor sitting on a desk half buried in boxes and covered in dust, so I started scanning over all the junk with my eyes thinking there was probably an old PC in there somewhere when I spotted the back of it I said to him "Hey neat computer!" and walked up to it and peeked around the junk that was piled around it to see the front. Once I spotted the 5.25" diskette drive I couldn't contain my excitement and I asked him if he would sell it. He asked me what I was going to do with it and he told me he purchased it for 100$ back in 1996 (So I assume it's like a 386 or something, I didn't get a good look at it.). I said I just like these old machines and I'd give him 30$ for it and I'd be willing to back up any documents he wanted from the hard drive so that he could access this data on his modern PC.
But he refused flat out. 😒

Oh well! 😜

Don't give up just yet...he may approach you one day out of the blue and ask you if you still want the computer (maybe when he is hard up for cash). 🤣

The thing that's weird about people like that is that sometimes they will just throw it away instead of giving it away...It's almost like they don't want you to have it for some strange reason...I have seen it before....you might actually see it in the dumpster one of these days too...you never know.

King_Corduroy wrote:

The real ironic part of all of this is that I have an older next door nieghbor who is a bit strange. I happened to notice a few weeks ago that he has an old PC in his shed with a 5.25" floppy disk drive in it so I asked him if he would sell it to me but he refuses to on the grounds that it's nostolgic for him. Yet there it sits grimy and buried in boxes. 🙁

Really gets my goat that he's just going to let it gather dust.

you can get it another way..

STEAL IT
but in all honesty, i would just wait until he tosses it or something.

🤣 I doubt he would notice, but yeah trust me I'm going to be keeping an eye out for it from now on. 😜