However, you’ll also need all the necessary cables, a power supply with a Molex connector for the drive, and, possibly, a vintage external 5.25-inch drive bay enclosure if you want a nice unit. It allows you to use an internal 5.25-inch floppy disk drive to copy data from 5.25-inch disks in various formats over a USB cable to a modern PC. Option 1: Use the FC5025 USB Adapter and an Internal 5.25-Inch Floppy DriveĪ small company called Device Side Data manufactures an adapter called the FC5025. Let’s look at the options for copying the data to a modern PC from easiest to most difficult. Then, you can copy the data over your LAN to a modern PC. If you have an older Windows 98, ME, XP, or 2000 PC or laptop with Ethernet and a 3.5-inch floppy drive, it might be able to read and copy the floppy to the computer’s hard drive. Option 4: Use a Vintage Computer with a Floppy Drive and Network Connection We haven’t tested those boards, though, so proceed at your own risk. Another option is to mount the drive and adapter internally in a computer case, and then use a SATA power adapter there. You can rig an external power supply for the floppy drive with the proper adapter. You can connect it to a generic floppy-to-USB adapter. Perhaps you even have one sitting around. If you’re looking for more of a roll-your-own challenge, you could also buy a vintage internal 3.5-inch floppy drive. Option 3: Use an Internal Floppy Drive with a Cheap USB Adapter For example, a Sony USB floppy drive will work when connected to a USB port on any Windows PC. Most are still supported as plug-and-play devices by Windows 10.ĭespite the branding, you don’t need a drive that matches your PC. We recommend searching eBay for something like “ Sony USB floppy drive,” and trying your luck with one of those.
We’ll cover the options from easiest to most difficult. As a result, there are many semi-modern drives and solutions available. The 3.5-inch floppy drives held on as a legacy product long after their 1.44 MB capacity had become absurdly small in relative terms.
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If you have 3.5-inch floppy disks formatted for MS-DOS or Windows that you want to copy to a modern Windows 10 or Windows 7 PC, you’re in luck. This is the easiest format to work with.
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RELATED: How To Use DOSBox To Run DOS Games and Old Apps How to Copy Files From a 3.5-Inch Floppy Drive to a Modern PC Benj Edwards / How-To Geek You’ll have to figure out how to access or convert the data using emulators, such as DOSBox or other utilities, which is beyond the scope of this article.
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It might be locked in vintage file formats modern software can’t understand. Once you copy the data, you have to be able to read it. What we’re going to cover here-copying data from a vintage floppy disk onto a modern PC-is only half the battle. There’s a Catch: Copying Data Is the Easy Partīefore we begin, you should understand a huge caveat. Here’s how to access a vintage 3.5- or 5.25-inch floppy disk on a modern Windows PC or Mac. Eventually, they were replaced, and floppy disk drives vanished from new computers. Remember floppies? Back in the day, they were essential.