I don't think I've ever seen or heard of a USB 5.25 floppy drive. However, if your computer's motherboard has a floppy controller, you might be able to get away with using an internal 5.25 floppy drive on a modern Windows 7 computer. I've never tried it, but it might be possible. Bear in mind that internal 5.25 drives need a floppy cable with an edge connector to hook up to the drive.

I've always wondered if it was possible to isolate the USB to Floppy circuitry from a USB floppy drive and hack it to work with an ordinary floppy. That way, all you'd have to do is mount the standard floppy into your case and run a cable from the adapter to an internal USB header. I wonder why no one has capitalized on this idea.

PCI floppy controllers would also be cool. There are a few that do exist, but they exceedingly rare (unobtainium). I imagine it wouldn't be that difficult to engineer one. Floppy controller chips are still available.

I don't intend to collect stuff in the 5.25 format. The only thing I have available in that is a complete copy of PC-DOS 6.1, and I don't know if it works or not. I would probably benefit more from the 3.5 drive anyway. It's just that, if I was to wander across a disk containing source code or some other salvageable data that I couldn't get elsewhere, it would be alright to have around. Though that is highly unlikely.

As far as I see it, a 5.25" usb floppy drive could be easy enough to implement?? The most forseeable issue I think is power.

I have seen a USB controller designed for data retrieval on 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives. Let me see if I can find it.

edit:

something like this combined with a power brick from one of those external USB hard drive data retrievers should do the trick.

The only thing I know of is the Kryoflux interface. A bit on the expensive side though. It might be cheaper to do as was suggested, buy a cheap 3.5" and try to retrofit it to a 5.25" drive. Or, put together an older system just to hook up the 5.25" drive like I did 😀 I wanted the system anyways, but I was looking towards getting the 5.25" drive up and running again too.

AFAIK, USB floppy drives still use the classic shugart interface internally.

You could solder up an adaptor to connect a 5.25" drive (you'd need an external power supply too), but you may have difficulty overriding the type of drive the USB chip reports (telling the OS cyls, heads, spt, etc). Unless it has a configuration EEPROM you could manipulate...

It would definitely be an interesting experiment.

Edit: There is the FC5052 which does what you want, but it's a bit pricy, nearly as much as a KryoFlux. The DIY approach would still be interesting to pursue.

SquallStrife wrote:

You could solder up an adaptor to connect a 5.25" drive (you'd need an external power supply too), but you may have difficulty overriding the type of drive the USB chip reports (telling the OS cyls, heads, spt, etc). Unless it has a configuration EEPROM you could manipulate...

I once bought a bunch of external 1.44MB parallel drives fitted with standard internal 1.44MB floppy drives (this drive only supported 9x though, so no XP or newer afaik) and replaced the 1.44MB drive with one of my 2.88MB ones and it worked! My god was it slow, but it worked 😁

Buy a vintage PC with 5.25" FDD. That is usually the easiest and cheapest solution.

Example: http://cgi.ebay.com/161428569416.

FeedingDragon wrote:

The only thing I know of is the Kryoflux interface. A bit on the expensive side though. It might be cheaper to do as was suggested, buy a cheap 3.5" and try to retrofit it to a 5.25" drive. Or, put together an older system just to hook up the 5.25" drive like I did 😀 I wanted the system anyways, but I was looking towards getting the 5.25" drive up and running again too.

The problem with such cards is that they only allow the retrieval or placement of data through imaging. You cannot simply copy a file to the floppy drive in a conventional manner which somewhat defeats that point IMO. 3.5" USB drives can be used conventionally, I don't know entirely why 5.25" cannot. After all, just because it has a card connector means nothing, the pin outs are the same regardless to a 3.5".

Blurredman wrote:

FeedingDragon wrote:

The only thing I know of is the Kryoflux interface. A bit on the expensive side though. It might be cheaper to do as was suggested, buy a cheap 3.5" and try to retrofit it to a 5.25" drive. Or, put together an older system just to hook up the 5.25" drive like I did 😀 I wanted the system anyways, but I was looking towards getting the 5.25" drive up and running again too.

The problem with such cards is that they only allow the retrieval or placement of data through imaging. You cannot simply copy a file to the floppy drive in a conventional manner which somewhat defeats that point IMO. 3.5" USB drives can be used conventionally, I don't know entirely why 5.25" cannot. After all, just because it has a card connector means nothing, the pin outs are the same regardless to a 3.5".

Yes, you would have to do all your work with images. All the disk reads or writes would only be full disk operations. But it is the only USB device I know of that is specifically designed to handle 5.25" drives. If all you are worried about is archiving your failing disks, or getting your 5.25" disks onto your modern system (for use in DOSBox or whatever,) it'll get the job done. But all told, your going to spend at least $130 (in the US, international shipping is a pain.) I "think" that's how much I spent for mine (I got it for my Apple II & C64 disks mainly.) That's just for the board, then you have to worry about the 5.25" drive, and paying to alter it (if you can't do it yourself,) to read flippy disks (if, like me, you want to archive Apple II or C64 disks.) With 200+ C64 games on failing media, and several Apple II games (don't even have an estimate on those, 10-60 is my best guess,) and actually having work back then, it was worth it to me 😀

Jeckidy wrote:

Also, if there are any concerns about the 3.5 USB drives available, let me know. Thanks!

Sorry, I missed that part. The only concern "I" know of is addressed on This Microshaft page. Mainly, some drives cannot be read during the early install process of Windows XP (don't know about Vista/7/8,) preventing the loading of extra mass storage drivers (which come on floppies,) such as raid drivers. The page gives a list of what to look for. I used it as a guide in picking the USB drive I eventually purchased. There may be other concerns to look out for, but not that I could find in a brief search.

mockingbird wrote:

I've always wondered if it was possible to isolate the USB to Floppy circuitry from a USB floppy drive and hack it to work with an ordinary floppy. That way, all you'd have to do is mount the standard floppy into your case and run a cable from the adapter to an internal USB header. I wonder why no one has capitalized on this idea.

PCI floppy controllers would also be cool. There are a few that do exist, but they exceedingly rare (unobtainium). I imagine it wouldn't be that difficult to engineer one. Floppy controller chips are still available.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1496291/making-an- … l-floppy-how-to

I made thread here but,. these forums don't list all of threads you have made your self.

There used to be a USB-FDC chip that could be set to register as a 5¼" 1.2MB drive through simple jumpers but I can't remember what the part number was. If I ever find again I should be able to make a small adapter that goes from USB to any floppy drive (5¼" and 3½")

Maeslin wrote:

There used to be a USB-FDC chip that could be set to register as a 5¼" 1.2MB drive through simple jumpers but I can't remember what the part number was. If I ever find again I should be able to make a small adapter that goes from USB to any floppy drive (5¼" and 3½")

😳

It's been discontinued for years afaik so even if I do find the part number finding stock would be... problematic. I'm still looking though.

Sounds familiar, Maeslin, but I can't think of it either. Was it by Prolific or someone?

For the rest in the thread, here's a pretty good summary:
http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Rescuing_Floppy_Disks

May have been. I know it wasn't the much more common SMSC controller. That one'll do Mode3 but won't do 5.25"

It might be problematic but, not impossible. I'm sure there are forums out there that focus on components and electronics projects. Also waybackmachine.org can be VERY helpful.