3.5 Floppy question...

I've got some old 3.5 floppy discs with information I'd prefer to not lose.  I'm told that readers are basically unavailable now and even if you have one, current hardware can't read that data.   Suggestions?

Find an old working computer with a floppy drive, network adapter and a browser.  Copy the files from the floppies and email them to yourself.

In reply to stroker :

Search for "USB 3.5" floppy drive" and you'll find tons of suitable options.

Once you have that, make backup images of the important information using something like: https://www.winimage.com/winimage.htm

That combined with a stack a new disks will allow you to recreate the disks as needed. Ideally, you would backup the data to a different format, i.e. thumb drive and do away with the floppies altogether.

Teenager wrote :

Wow! Someone 3D printed the Save Icon! 

Yep plenty of USB drives exist, and Windows still supports it.  I use them about once a week due to legacy machinery that's incapable of being network connected.

Once again my advice wasn’t close.

In reply to Wally :

And I was just going to post a "THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID" meme.  Your pic is better.

In reply to Duke :

What other direction could this possibly have gone:

I have some 3.5s as well.  The theater has some old Vista towers with a 3.5" drive, but the towers have all been bastardized and scavenged for other parts so they don't operate.

But, with creative wire twisting and some scotch tape I think I can make it into an external drive.

Or, check Newegg and TigerDirect.  Up until a while ago you could get a USB external 3.5" drive for like $29

Quick Amazon search shows several USB external floppy drives for under $15. That's what I'd do.

Wally said:

In reply to Duke :

What other direction could this possibly have gone:

 

The truly sad part is this post will never make it to "Said What"....  So it needs repeating.

BTW, if Austin Powers got up to date, I'm sure he could have a USB powered 3.5in Floppy drive, too.  

I just bought one of the cheap floppy drives off of Amazon, and the only issue I'm having is that Windows 10 doesn't seem to want to respect the lower-density format I need it to use for the old Yamaha keyboard I'm trying to fix...

I use a Sabrent USB 3.5" drive at work for an old CNC mill, it's lasted several years. As opposed to others that have lasted days. Go to Newegg, and check the ratings.

No one is asking what is on the 3.5" drives?!?!?  I for one am intrigued.  

Ransom said:

I just bought one of the cheap floppy drives off of Amazon, and the only issue I'm having is that Windows 10 doesn't seem to want to respect the lower-density format I need it to use for the old Yamaha keyboard I'm trying to fix...

It's worth nothing that PCs used 720K for the lower density formating (technically double-sided, double-density) and macs used 800K.  Both used 1.44M for the double-sided, high-density format.  IIRC, PC drives couldn't manage the 800K format.

As far as what's on them, yeah. Could be an issue. Programs generally won't install on newer systems, even in compatibilty mode, some file types are obsolete without that program, etc. Some opensource converters work for some things, but it's hit and miss. 

Looks like only a few drives are available any more. I should buy a spare!

pinchvalve said:

No one is asking what is on the 3.5" drives?!?!?  I for one am intrigued.  

Nudie pics of his ol' lady. Duh. 

RealMiniNoMore said:

pinchvalve said:

No one is asking what is on the 3.5" drives?!?!?  I for one am intrigued.  

Nudie pics of his ol' lady. Duh. 

Well, one nudie pic is stored across about 40 floppy disks, but other than that your response is plausible. 

pinchvalve said:

No one is asking what is on the 3.5" drives?!?!?  I for one am intrigued.  

I thought nuclear missile codes, then I remembered they're still on 5.25s. 

TenToeTurbo said:

Ideally, you would backup the data to a different format, i.e. thumb drive and do away with the floppies altogether.

i lost 2 years of jpgs when a thumb drive E36 M3 the bed.  i was changing jobs and used the thumb drive to pull them off my work PC.  it E36 M3 the bed as i was beginning to copy them from the thumb drive to the new PC.  so keep them on the thumb drive if you want to, but don't believe that thumb drives are infallible.

In reply to AngryCorvair :

I certainly don't think they're infallible. I've had them fail in a variety of unique and interesting ways. They don't last forever. Backup your backups. 

Robbie said:

RealMiniNoMore said:

pinchvalve said:

No one is asking what is on the 3.5" drives?!?!?  I for one am intrigued.  

Nudie pics of his ol' lady. Duh. 

Well, one nudie pic is stored across about 40 floppy disks, but other than that your response is plausible. 

Dude is that a geeky fat joke?

In reply to Robbie :

Yo mama so fat, her nudie pics only fit on a HAND drive.

There's no hardware problem, any working 3.5" floppy drive should be able to read any working 3.5" floppy disk. You might have trouble finding modern software to read old proprietary file formats, and 3.5" disks seem to rot on their own pretty quickly, but those are different problems.

So I'd say stick that floppy in a drive hooked up to a Linux computer (could be a Windows computer booting from a Live CD/USB) and use ddrescue to try to get the data off that drive.

If you try to just copy the files off it'll probably be a crapshoot.

I have a “ZIP” disc that has pics of all the cars I owned and shows I photographed in 98-02 that I’ve never been able to copy. Zip drives were super expensive back then and we had one for transferring graphics files. Maybe I should work on getting them off of there.

edit: went to google and found that a zip reader is $14.00 now. Ha!