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Old April 19th 09, 10:30 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Arno[_3_]
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Default 5.25" floppy drive to IDE to USB?

Anthony K. -removeme wrote:

Is it possible to get a vintage 5.25" PC floppy drive connected to a
modern PC with no floppy controller and just USB/FireWire inputs?
Do IDE 5.25" floppy drives exist?


Not to my knowledge. There used to be very expensive SCSI
floppy controllers, that could also handle 5.25" drives, but
that was way past. They did cost more than a cheap PC.

If so, I could drop one into a USB enclosure.


Very unlikely. These IDE-USB bridges do not understand
floppies.

Is there an adapter that would let me connect a floppy drive to an IDE
interface?


Not as far as I know.

My specific machine is a Macintosh so I'm certain there are additional
BIOS issues, but I figure, as long as I am able to get the drive mounted
via USB, I could run Windows or just virtualize DOS in order to see the
drive properly.


Any ideas?


What is it you actually want to do? The additional problem with your
MAC is that it very likely cannot handle the 5.25" floppy formats
anyways.

The only option I see is to get a cheap (used?) PC in addition and
read the data off from those floppies and transfer it over, e.g.
by memory stick. AFAIK, you will need to use either Linux or DOS
to read the disks, as not even XP does support 5.25" floppies.
Under Linux, it should not be too much of a problem though.

Incidentially, it could be a problem _getting_ a working 5.25"
floppy these days. AFAIK they have not been manufatured for
quite some time. Also make sure to get the right one. There
are 40/80 track, single/double-sided, and HD drives out there.
Only the HD drives can read all formatsm but should not be used
to write 40 track disks.

Arno