5 1/4" floppy drive question
 

"Jim" wrote in message
...
I have a lot of 5 1/4" floppy disks I would like to copy to CD-R. These
are mostly Quickbasic and PDS 7.1 libraries and source code and such, and
are not generally around any more.

I do not currently have a computer able to read these disks, but have a
couple of 5 1/4" drives w/cables I have saved from computers (mostly 486's
I
suspect) I have salvaged in the past.

Can I install one of these in a WIN98 computer? I have a couple of these
that were discards/replacements that I grabbed, and they all have 3 1/2"
drives which I don't particularly need. Will a 5 1/4" drive work in place
of the 3 1/2"? What do I need to do to get this working?



Win98 can easily handle a 5.25" floppy

just install it and set the bios the the correct parameters (ie: 1.2 meg or
360 k)

5 1/4" floppy drive question
 

Jim wrote:
I have a lot of 5 1/4" floppy disks I would like to copy to CD-R. These
are mostly Quickbasic and PDS 7.1 libraries and source code and such, and
are not generally around any more.

I do not currently have a computer able to read these disks, but have a
couple of 5 1/4" drives w/cables I have saved from computers (mostly 486's I
suspect) I have salvaged in the past.

Can I install one of these in a WIN98 computer? I have a couple of these
that were discards/replacements that I grabbed, and they all have 3 1/2"
drives which I don't particularly need. Will a 5 1/4" drive work in place
of the 3 1/2"?

Yes.


What do I need to do to get this working?


I really would like to copy these under Windows, since, if there are
problems reading these old disks, I can use Badcopy Pro or other media
recovery software.

Thanks
Jim

I'd load dos 6.22 on the machine that does the reading. The later
versions of Windows tend to only read the 1.2MB variety. (which sucks)

Maybe make a dual boot situation.


You'll want to make sure the old DRIVES work fine before you run it on
media you care about.

5 1/4" floppy drive question
 

"Jim" wrote in message
...
I have a lot of 5 1/4" floppy disks I would like to copy to CD-R. These
are mostly Quickbasic and PDS 7.1 libraries and source code and such, and
are not generally around any more.

I do not currently have a computer able to read these disks, but have a
couple of 5 1/4" drives w/cables I have saved from computers (mostly 486's
I
suspect) I have salvaged in the past.

Can I install one of these in a WIN98 computer? I have a couple of these
that were discards/replacements that I grabbed, and they all have 3 1/2"
drives which I don't particularly need. Will a 5 1/4" drive work in place
of the 3 1/2"? What do I need to do to get this working?

I really would like to copy these under Windows, since, if there are
problems reading these old disks, I can use Badcopy Pro or other media
recovery software.

Thanks
Jim

Like others have said, the machine should be able to handle the drive, but
you might need to go into the BIOS and tell it the drive exists. If the
motherboard was not running one already sometimes floppy support is disabled
on the BIOS until you turn it on.

If the original diskettes are using any form of "copy guarding" or
encryption you may still have problems making the copies work after they are
burned to the CD, even after recopying them back to a new floppy.

5 1/4" floppy drive question
 

I have a lot of 5 1/4" floppy disks I would like to copy to CD-R. These
are mostly Quickbasic and PDS 7.1 libraries and source code and such, and
are not generally around any more.

I do not currently have a computer able to read these disks, but have a
couple of 5 1/4" drives w/cables I have saved from computers (mostly 486's I
suspect) I have salvaged in the past.

Can I install one of these in a WIN98 computer? I have a couple of these
that were discards/replacements that I grabbed, and they all have 3 1/2"
drives which I don't particularly need. Will a 5 1/4" drive work in place
of the 3 1/2"? What do I need to do to get this working?

I really would like to copy these under Windows, since, if there are
problems reading these old disks, I can use Badcopy Pro or other media
recovery software.

Thanks
Jim