HI, I have an old 5.25" floppy drive and I'd like to conect it to my computer. Now, I could open the case and install the drive, of course, but I'm seeking a more convenient solution.
There are numerous USB Floppy drives for the 3.5" format, so maybe there's something similar for 5.25"?
Also, since there are adapters for PATA(3.5" and 5.25") and SATA all in one device, that connect to USB, so maybe there's something similar for Floppies?
Best Answer
It appears that most USB floppies use an integrated controller, and don't expose the floppy cable in any way where it could be misused by perhaps connecting a 5.25" drive. That said, it also appears that there is an active ancient data and media community that is building up controllers and tools to deal with lots of ancient stuff.
One such is http://www.deviceside.com/ which makes a controller and matching PC software that can read (but probably not write) DOS and some CP/M format floppies.
There is also http://www.kryoflux.com/ which is taking a different approach. Their controller brings back the analog track content and can potentially decode nearly anything written to a floppy. No clue about price, but if you have a crate of valuable data written by an Apple ][ (or something even more obscure) there may not be very many other choices.....
A quick skim doesn't turn up any complete solutions. I'll be interested to see what other SU users turn up.