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How to build an external 5.25" floppy drive

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twilyth

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It's been a while since I've looked at this project but I don't think the issue was a ribbon cable card edge connector. I'm pretty sure I have a cable with both the female card edge connectors and the female pin connectors. I think something with pins on one side and a female card edge connector on the other. I've spent several hours looking for something like that with no success.
 

btunell

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Connecting 5.25" Floppy Drive to Laptop USB

Have appreciated reading threads below. I have Teac FD-55GFR 5.25" Floppy Drive 1.2M which I am trying to connect to laptop in some way. It seems to have a 'ribbon thread' connector, maybe similar to the below; I count 17 copper strips in this connector, so if it is assumed that both sides need to be counted (17 x 2 = 34), this may be the 34 pin ribbon connector discussed below. Photos are attached.

Has anyone found a way, or know of a way, to get this 5.25" floppy connected to a laptop with USB or 25 pin connector?

Comtech

That takes a card edge connector, 3M part number 3463, 34 position, 2x17.
http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/mediaw...f6LX46EVtQEcuZgVs6EVs6E666666--&fn=ts0012.pdf
 

stillcooking

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The 5.25 floppy still exists, like sittings of the Yette. Since I lived through these times and saved most of my old hardware I thought I could put some final nails in this coffin. In the mid 80's, 85 or 86 to be more precise, the 5.25" floppy was king. Its reign lasted for many years into the early 90's. The 360 kb was most common and I used to back up my 30mb hard drive to 30, 360kb, 5.25" floppies. When Windows 95 came out and I got a new computer in 1996, I went out and purchased a used 1.2 mb 5.25 floppy. I later upgraded to WIn 98. I have kept all my old floppy drives and connection cables. When I upgraded to a new computer with Win XP I tried to install the 1.2 floppy with my old cables I found that the FDD hardware was not recognized by my motherboard. I guess the new floppy disk controller would only work with 3.5 FDD. The cable is the same except you have 2-5.25" connectors plus 2-3.5" connectors (A and B drives). One pair of wires is swapped to make the different drive letters.

I disposed of about two large trash bags of 5.25" floppies after I copied them to my ZIP Drive that connected to my printer port. The bottom line is that if you are going to install a 5.25 FDD in an old computer you will need a Win 95 or 98 vintage model. Also, Win 98 was the first time USB was available, but I could not get it to work. Some time between 2000 and 2002 (ME or XP) is when I suspect the world changed and the 5.25" floppy died and was buried.

Where did the parallel and serial ports go? I still have software dongles for the parallel ports and the USB ports do not work with them.
 

Daniel Schär

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Hi, this is a verry interesting thread, as I tried to do a similar thing, I rewired the controller of a 3.5'' USB-floppy to an old floppy-cable. The computer (win2k or w7, I'm not shure anymore) would recognize a 3.5'' floppy, and no reading or writing was possible (just a litte LED-lighting). Unfortunately I connected the controller to a real old cable, that has no connectors for 3.5'' floppys, so I couldn't try out, if an old 3.5'' floppy would run with my device.
Considering the posts above, namely, that stillcooking had negative results with a 5.25 drive connected to a more recent FDD-controller, and that the Device Side Data adapter is read-only, I guess I will give up the Idea of having a 5¼'' floppy drive on my current computer. So I will replace the 360 kB drive on my w98 machine with my only 1.2 MB drive, where it can join my old zip-drive. (I also have USB on that computer to save on a stick, but oddly enough, it's the card I bought for my Apple G3, because the card from the PC-Store wouldn't work in the PC, but fine in the Mac. Com-connections might also work to read data from old computers, even from their floppy drives. Run intersrvr.exe on the old computer and see whar happens - use "intersvr /?" to get advice.)
Thanx to all of you for your hints, and keep posting, in case you find a solution.
 

JayZeeOne

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You could also enable file sharing on an older computer with a motherboard floppy disk controller. An otherwise abandoned and presumably free Windows XP computer should work, but other Windows versions can be OK too.

You can then set up a network share for the 5.25-inch drive and access it over your local area network. Should be read/write if everything is set up properly. You can also share 3.5-inch and zip drives.
 
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EDIT : Just checked does not support floppy drives :(
 
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Location
South Africa ,Lions Everywhere..
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Processor Intel i5 2500k 4 Ghz
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Case GMC X7 X-Station
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That is for hard drives. Doesn't work with floppy disk drives.

Yes , i just checked , Does not support Floppy , thought it did tho
 

JayZeeOne

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When I upgraded to a new computer with Win XP I tried to install the 1.2 floppy with my old cables I found that the FDD hardware was not recognized by my motherboard.

Did you change the setting in the pre-boot CMOS for the first A floppy or second B floppy drive from "None" to something like "1.2 mb, 5.25''? And put the 1.2 MB drive on the correct cable connector, where A is on the end of the cable after the twist and B before the twist?

If connecting only one floppy it should be the first A.
 
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