[REQUEST] USB / SATA 5.25" floppy drive (cable?)

[stinow]

Hi folks,

For quite some time I've been searching for ways to connect a 5.25" floppy drive (the thin big old ones) to a modern computer. Since I'm not good with soldering etc, I wonder if anyone here knows a way for realising this.

I've found a website which sells them.. for quite a price. Maybe someone here is nifty enough?
http://www.deviceside.com/fc5025.html

Best Regards,

Stijn

[crustyasp46]

I ran across an article in my travels on the net, About USB connection to modern computers, unfortunately I did not bookmark it, but I will do a search of my browsing history to see if I can relocate it, I believe it was on a Commodore link that I found. I don't think it is the same one as you posted as your page does not look familiar.

If I find it again I will post the link for you. If you haven't heard from meor have not found something else in a couple of days, give this a bump as memory jogger for me.


Discussion here and some links: http://superuser.com/questions/252510/u ... er-for-usb

A review of Device side product,, note the comment by Jayson Smith. : http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2503

I am the in-house expert on wanting a USB 5.25" drive.

There are several options available, but none provide full read-write support yet (for USB, anyway). Many will in the future, though, so if you have patience..

Anywho I decided to just get a system that had a floppy controller, but that's not an option for you.

Here's my makeshift solution - get a parallel port. If you don't have one on your laptop, you can buy a USB->Parallel adapter that should work fine for this.

Get a copy of "Parallels" virtual machine - it must be this one, as it's the only one (ironically, considering it's name) with functioning parallel passthrough.

Assign the parallel port you just attained to a virtual machine you create as a passthrough.

Get a 3.5" Backpack Floppy drive from eBay (or from another person here, if eBay is finally out), and take the circuitry out.

Hook a 5.25" drive to the circuit and follow directions found somewhere on our forum (search "backpack 5.25") to change it to a 5.25" controller.

Run a copy of DOS in the VM (or Win9x if you like) and use the driver for the parallel floppy drive with it.

You now can access 5.25" disks from your modern copy of Windows (or Linux) through a VM.

This is the only solution without a floppy controller on your machine at the moment for full access to the drive.

If you require only read support, then you have the option of Kryoflux or the FC5025 (http://www.deviceside.com/fc5025.html).

If you only need read support and you don't need special capabilities to read damaged disks or weird formats, I'd go with the FC5025.

If you need write support and special capabilities, wait for the Kyroflux to achieve write support. If you had a desktop machine in this equation, another option is the Catweasel (a PCI card, full read-write, exotic formats, etc).

This is the brief version of all of the knowledge I've attained in my journey to find a 5.25" USB Floppy, should save you some trouble, I hope.

(Oh and as they say, you can always connect an old computer to your newer one and do it that way, but that feels like cheating to me, especially when there are other options.)

Edit: Oh and 32- vs 64-bit matters. Catweasel doesn't have 64-bit Windows drivers (yet - they are working on them, I've talked to the maker of it), nor does FC5025. The FC5025 being a USB device, however, can be passed to a VM such as XP mode, which is what they suggest on their website for 64-bit users. I don't know about Kyroflux in this regard, so you'll have to do some research if you decide to persue that option.

If you happen to want to read/write C64/128 disks, by the way, I recommend an X-cable and a real Commodore disk drive (even though FC5025 can read and Catweasel can read and write to them, it's cheaper to do it this way if that's all you need). I don't believe this is what you were doing, though.

Edit 2:

Kryoflux: http://www.softpres.org/glossary:kryoflux
FC5025: http://www.deviceside.com/
Catweasel: http://www.jschoenfeld.com/products/catweasel_e.htm
(At time of writing this, Catweasel MK4+ is the only one sold anymore and is current, see
http://www.jschoenfeld.com/products/cwmk4+_e.htm )
Last edited by Raven; November 4th, 2010 at 05:44 AM.

Found here: http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum ... -laptop-...

[stinow]

Wow, Crustyasp, this will surely save me some trouble in my search to connect a 5.25" drive to my computer!



At work a.t.m., so I'll dive in you're advice later on. Thanks a bunch!

[crustyasp46]

Wow, Crustyasp, this will surely save me some trouble in my search to connect a 5.25" drive to my computer!



At work a.t.m., so I'll dive in you're advice later on. Thanks a bunch!

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