We found a cache of about 50 old floppy disks & hard floppies]
in the temperature controlled storage area and the family
asked me how to read them (given nobody has that old of a PC).

Do they make a cheap USB floppy/hardfloppy reader?

On 9/3/23 20:51, this is what Mickey D wrote:
> We found a cache of about 50 old floppy disks & hard floppies]
> in the temperature controlled storage area and the family
> asked me how to read them (given nobody has that old of a PC).
>
> Do they make a cheap USB floppy/hardfloppy reader?
Well they used to.
https://www.amazon.com/External-Floppy-Portable-Windows-Mac%C2%A3%C2%ACGeneral/dp/B07G444XKW

I have one of the single bay drives that handles both floppy disks. But then then IDE connections are no longer on boards.

As they say "Amazon has everything." Just do a search.
--
Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon
Al

On 09/03/2023 8:51 PM, Mickey D wrote:
> We found a cache of about 50 old floppy disks & hard floppies]
> in the temperature controlled storage area and the family
> asked me how to read them (given nobody has that old of a PC).
>
> Do they make a cheap USB floppy/hardfloppy reader?

Do a Search. I used Google for "usb floppy drive" windows 10

While there are several on Amazon, there were a couple from Walmart and
Newegg. Most less that 30 with shipping and handling.

It looked like some were combo drive that area both floppy and the 3.5"
disk. If you were talking about the real old floppies then again try a
search.

Mickey D wrote:
> We found a cache of about 50 old floppy disks & hard floppies]
> in the temperature controlled storage area and the family
> asked me how to read them (given nobody has that old of a PC).
>
> Do they make a cheap USB floppy/hardfloppy reader?

You'll find a few on ebay and elsewhere.
BUT beware. Drivers will be needed. Don't buy any reader until you read
the small print, ie. which versions of Windows it will work with.
Maybe XP or prior OSes only.

Ed

On 9/3/2023 8:51 PM, Mickey D wrote:
> We found a cache of about 50 old floppy disks & hard floppies]
> in the temperature controlled storage area and the family
> asked me how to read them (given nobody has that old of a PC).
>
> Do they make a cheap USB floppy/hardfloppy reader?
>

What would your guess be on the "era" of the media ?
Check the labeling, and see if it is 3.5" 1.44MB .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk_format

Some bazaar sellers seem to have these Axgear USB floppy drives.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/285237458830

A "regular" computer store, the staff will just laugh at you,
if you ask for such a thing. I don't think there is any
giant stock of "new" kit for this. The Axgear might have
been a bulk buy from a bankruptcy or something.

If an attempt to read them with the 3.5" 1.44MB drive
does not work, then I would just give up. You would
need someone with a collection of old equipment, to
try reading them in older/different formats. I might have
some media here, which is 720KB or so. Maybe for a Mac.

I have older equipment here, but some of it has not been
booted for three decades, and is unlikely to work.

One thing I can warn you about, is don't leave a floppy
in a drive. Remove it when done. A clever student at work,
he didn't learn a damn thing the entire time he worked for us.
He started work on a document. He saved to a floppy. An 8" floppy.
He left the floppy in the drive all summer. He was supposed to
submit his report at the end of his work term. So I'm introduced
to the teary-eyed fool, who "cannot save to the floppy any more".
The damn machine had a hard drive, and there was no excuse for
using a floppy. They hand me the floppy, I have a look, and
the groove worn in the media would make Jesus cry. And his doc
was "gone-o". Gone to bit heaven. So at least for those floppies,
you don't want to leave them in the drive.

Paul

On 2023-09-04 05:49, Paul wrote:
> On 9/3/2023 8:51 PM, Mickey D wrote:
>> We found a cache of about 50 old floppy disks & hard floppies]
>> in the temperature controlled storage area and the family
>> asked me how to read them (given nobody has that old of a PC).
>>
>> Do they make a cheap USB floppy/hardfloppy reader?
>>
>
> What would your guess be on the "era" of the media ?
> Check the labeling, and see if it is 3.5" 1.44MB .
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk_format
>
> Some bazaar sellers seem to have these Axgear USB floppy drives.
>
> https://www.ebay.com/itm/285237458830
>
> A "regular" computer store, the staff will just laugh at you,
> if you ask for such a thing. I don't think there is any
> giant stock of "new" kit for this. The Axgear might have
> been a bulk buy from a bankruptcy or something.
>
> If an attempt to read them with the 3.5" 1.44MB drive
> does not work, then I would just give up. You would
> need someone with a collection of old equipment, to
> try reading them in older/different formats. I might have
> some media here, which is 720KB or so. Maybe for a Mac.
>
> I have older equipment here, but some of it has not been
> booted for three decades, and is unlikely to work.
>
> One thing I can warn you about, is don't leave a floppy
> in a drive. Remove it when done. A clever student at work,
> he didn't learn a damn thing the entire time he worked for us.
> He started work on a document. He saved to a floppy. An 8" floppy.
> He left the floppy in the drive all summer. He was supposed to
> submit his report at the end of his work term. So I'm introduced
> to the teary-eyed fool, who "cannot save to the floppy any more".
> The damn machine had a hard drive, and there was no excuse for
> using a floppy. They hand me the floppy, I have a look, and
> the groove worn in the media would make Jesus cry. And his doc
> was "gone-o". Gone to bit heaven. So at least for those floppies,
> you don't want to leave them in the drive.
I guess some lousy hardware or lousy driver had the motor running for
"days".

I had a machine that would test the floppy on boot, then continue from
the hard disk. The machine booted slower if there was no floppy (longer
test and timeout), so I left it in for years. The floppy was fine.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

On Mon, 4 Sep 2023 02:51:48 +0200, Mickey D <mickeydavis078XX@ptd.net>
wrote:

>We found a cache of about 50 old floppy disks & hard floppies]
>in the temperature controlled storage area and the family
>asked me how to read them (given nobody has that old of a PC).
>
>Do they make a cheap USB floppy/hardfloppy reader?

Yes, you can find inexpensive 3.5" and 5.25" USB drives on Amazon.com.
I didn't look through all the choices there, but I didn't see any
drives that took both sizes, so if you want to read both sizes, you
might have to buy two.

On 9/4/2023 12:52 AM, Ed Cryer wrote:
> Mickey D wrote:
>> We found a cache of about 50 old floppy disks & hard floppies]
>> in the temperature controlled storage area and the family
>> asked me how to read them (given nobody has that old of a PC).
>>
>> Do they make a cheap USB floppy/hardfloppy reader?
>
> You'll find a few on ebay and elsewhere.
> BUT beware. Drivers will be needed. Don't buy any reader until you read
> the small print, ie. which versions of Windows it will work with.
> Maybe XP or prior OSes only.
>
> Ed
FWIW I've found that my generic no-name USB 3.5" floppy drive doesn't
show up in Windows (10) File Explorer or Disk Management but works fine
in the 'DOS box" (Command cmd.exe) on the same Windows 10 PC.

On 9/4/2023 8:29 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

> I guess some lousy hardware or lousy driver had the motor running for "days".
>
> I had a machine that would test the floppy on boot, then continue from the hard disk. The machine booted slower if there was no floppy (longer test and timeout), so I left it in for years. The floppy was fine.
>

The description was of an 8" floppy.

The motor on ours was 115V AC and ran from mains.
This meant the inside of the PC had mains wiring,
in addition to the usual low voltage DC for logic.

The motor is lower left. There is a belt drive you can't
see, that terminates on the spindle.

https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-a1x7hg2jgk/images/stencil/608x608/products/21320/120807/shugart-801-8-inch-internal-floppy-disk-drive-4.35__04572.1490181563.jpg?c=2

In this one, you can see how, when we "closed the door" using
that raised handle, that compressed the plastic hub up against
the spindle and caused the media to rotate inside the floppy "envelope".
The envelope was there to protect the media. The dude left the
door closed for four months. Media spinning the whole time.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Floppy_Disk_Drive_8_inch.jpg

Paul

On 2023-09-04 13:19, Bennett Price wrote:
> On 9/4/2023 12:52 AM, Ed Cryer wrote:
>> Mickey D wrote:
>>> We found a cache of about 50 old floppy disks & hard floppies]
>>> in the temperature controlled storage area and the family
>>> asked me how to read them (given nobody has that old of a PC).
>>>
>>> Do they make a cheap USB floppy/hardfloppy reader?
>>
>> You'll find a few on ebay and elsewhere.
>> BUT beware. Drivers will be needed. Don't buy any reader until you
>> read the small print, ie. which versions of Windows it will work with.
>> Maybe XP or prior OSes only.
>>
>> Ed
> FWIW  I've found that my generic no-name USB 3.5" floppy drive doesn't
> show up in Windows (10) File Explorer or Disk Management but works fine
> in the 'DOS box" (Command cmd.exe) on the same Windows 10 PC.

The original MsDos floppy was directly controlled by the CPU, no "fire
and forget". It was a totally dumb device. The CPU had to send the
pulses to the motors, do the sensing of the hole, and do the timings.

Thus on a multitask operating system my guesstimate is it needs
preemptive multitasking, which in old Windows versions meant a Dos Box.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

On 2023-09-04 16:03, Paul wrote:
> On 9/4/2023 8:29 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>
>> I guess some lousy hardware or lousy driver had the motor running for "days".
>>
>> I had a machine that would test the floppy on boot, then continue from the hard disk. The machine booted slower if there was no floppy (longer test and timeout), so I left it in for years. The floppy was fine.
>>
>
> The description was of an 8" floppy.
>
> The motor on ours was 115V AC and ran from mains.
> This meant the inside of the PC had mains wiring,
> in addition to the usual low voltage DC for logic.
>
> The motor is lower left. There is a belt drive you can't
> see, that terminates on the spindle.
>
> https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-a1x7hg2jgk/images/stencil/608x608/products/21320/120807/shugart-801-8-inch-internal-floppy-disk-drive-4.35__04572.1490181563.jpg?c=2
>
> In this one, you can see how, when we "closed the door" using
> that raised handle, that compressed the plastic hub up against
> the spindle and caused the media to rotate inside the floppy "envelope".
> The envelope was there to protect the media. The dude left the
> door closed for four months. Media spinning the whole time.
>
> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Floppy_Disk_Drive_8_inch.jpg

Ok, but still that's a "faulty" design, IMO.

The "staff" had to be trained to cover that faulty design and know that
leaving the floppy inside with closed door must not be done.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

On 9/4/2023 11:14 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> On 2023-09-04 16:03, Paul wrote:
>> On 9/4/2023 8:29 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>>
>>> I guess some lousy hardware or lousy driver had the motor running for "days".
>>>
>>> I had a machine that would test the floppy on boot, then continue from the hard disk. The machine booted slower if there was no floppy (longer test and timeout), so I left it in for years. The floppy was fine.
>>>
>>
>> The description was of an 8" floppy.
>>
>> The motor on ours was 115V AC and ran from mains.
>> This meant the inside of the PC had mains wiring,
>> in addition to the usual low voltage DC for logic.
>>
>> The motor is lower left. There is a belt drive you can't
>> see, that terminates on the spindle.
>>
>> https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-a1x7hg2jgk/images/stencil/608x608/products/21320/120807/shugart-801-8-inch-internal-floppy-disk-drive-4.35__04572.1490181563.jpg?c=2
>>
>> In this one, you can see how, when we "closed the door" using
>> that raised handle, that compressed the plastic hub up against
>> the spindle and caused the media to rotate inside the floppy "envelope".
>> The envelope was there to protect the media. The dude left the
>> door closed for four months. Media spinning the whole time.
>>
>> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Floppy_Disk_Drive_8_inch.jpg
>
> Ok, but still that's a "faulty" design, IMO.
>
> The "staff" had to be trained to cover that faulty design and know that leaving the floppy inside with closed door must not be done.

We did actually have training courses at work.

For this particular equipment, the training would
normally be one-on-one. The individual should have been
paired with someone as their "mentor", and that did not
happen. A management fail...

Paul

On 9/4/2023 1:19 PM, Bennett Price wrote:
> On 9/4/2023 12:52 AM, Ed Cryer wrote:
>> Mickey D wrote:
>>> We found a cache of about 50 old floppy disks & hard floppies]
>>> in the temperature controlled storage area and the family
>>> asked me how to read them (given nobody has that old of a PC).
>>>
>>> Do they make a cheap USB floppy/hardfloppy reader?
>>
>> You'll find a few on ebay and elsewhere.
>> BUT beware. Drivers will be needed. Don't buy any reader until you read the small print, ie. which versions of Windows it will work with.
>> Maybe XP or prior OSes only.
>>
>> Ed
> FWIW  I've found that my generic no-name USB 3.5" floppy drive doesn't show up in Windows (10) File Explorer or Disk Management but works fine in the 'DOS box" (Command cmd.exe) on the same Windows 10 PC.

This is Windows 11, and Windows 10 should be the same.

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/9fByDBb3/usb-floppy-windows11.gif

It's possible a floppy wired to the SuperIO (the "traditional" controller),
might respond slightly differently. But I don't have any hardware
at the moment, to test with. My WinXP era machine died, and that
was the last traditional floppy here. Now, it's the USB floppy,
when I need such. I can even launch memtest from it.

Paul

On 04/09/2023 10:49, Paul wrote:
>
> snip <
>
> One thing I can warn you about, is don't leave a floppy
> in a drive. Remove it when done. A clever student at work,
> he didn't learn a damn thing the entire time he worked for us.
> He started work on a document. He saved to a floppy. An 8" floppy.
> He left the floppy in the drive all summer. He was supposed to
> submit his report at the end of his work term. So I'm introduced
> to the teary-eyed fool, who "cannot save to the floppy any more".
> The damn machine had a hard drive, and there was no excuse for
> using a floppy. They hand me the floppy, I have a look, and
> the groove worn in the media would make Jesus cry. And his doc
> was "gone-o". Gone to bit heaven. So at least for those floppies,
> you don't want to leave them in the drive.
>
>

I've fixed several non bootable PCs/laptops where the cure was to remove
a CD that was left in the drive.

--
Regards
wasbit

>> We found a cache of about 50 old floppy disks & hard floppies

Please elaborate
- what size floppy disks: 8", 5.25", 3.5" or other?
- what machine created them and what format? macintosh? PC?

>> Do they make a cheap USB floppy/hardfloppy reader?

As others have already replied:
USB interfaced 3.5" floppy drives are cheap.
They'll read 720k or 1.44 meg PC format.
If the floppy-disk reads without errors, YAY!
Otherwise you'll need data restoration tools
and/or retrofit controllers such as Greaseweazle or Applesauce.

>One thing I can warn you about, is don't leave a floppy
>in a drive. Remove it when done. A clever student at work ...

There are many reasons for that

- some drives never lifted the heads
and never powered off the spindle motor,
wearing out the floppy disk

- some drives glitched when powered on or off,
erasing whatever was under the disk heads at that time

--

In article <ud8bad$7fe$1@reader2.panix.com>,
jeffj@panix.com says...
>
> >> We found a cache of about 50 old floppy disks & hard floppies
>
> Please elaborate
> - what size floppy disks: 8", 5.25", 3.5" or other?
> - what machine created them and what format? macintosh? PC?
>
> >> Do they make a cheap USB floppy/hardfloppy reader?
>
> As others have already replied:
> USB interfaced 3.5" floppy drives are cheap.
> They'll read 720k or 1.44 meg PC format.
> If the floppy-disk reads without errors, YAY!
> Otherwise you'll need data restoration tools
> and/or retrofit controllers such as Greaseweazle or Applesauce.
>
> >One thing I can warn you about, is don't leave a floppy
> >in a drive. Remove it when done. A clever student at work ...
>
> There are many reasons for that
>
> - some drives never lifted the heads
> and never powered off the spindle motor,
> wearing out the floppy disk
>
> - some drives glitched when powered on or off,
> erasing whatever was under the disk heads at that time

do u have 2 brothers?