Storage Solutions Floppy drive backup

M

mktw

Disciple
Hi guys,

My brother's friend has a unique issue.
He was overseas between 1998-2004 during which technology changed from floopy to CD to DVD to pen-drives.
Coming back he faced this issue that he has many stuff and backups in 5 1/4" floppy drives (the big thin ones of capacity 1.2MB ) and he cudn't find disk-drive to read them.

Does anyone know any place where that type of disk-drives can be got OR any service to read those floppy drives and backup the stuff to CD/DVD ?

see the pictures as some of us may not have seen them :p
pic of disk-drive - File:5.25 in. floppy disk drive top.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
pic of the floppy - File:Floppy disk 5.25 inch.JPG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

thanks
 
Its tough though not impossible. You can create a WTB thread in market section here. You can contact some old offices in your contact persons. Afaik old banks used this media mostly than any other offices. So if you got anybody working in a government bank, high court, bmc office etc. then you can find that treasure there. And you can get it for free too coz hardly anybody bothers for that antiques these days, but to your gratitude you can offer him some respectful amount coz its rather a treasure no matter what. Old is Gold ;)

 
You can also search some old institution for system with those FDD. Also you can visit some radii-wallas who recycles computer components
 
My old computer has this drive. If you don't find this part or anyone who can help you transfer the data, then PM and if you are willing to pay for only shipping costs then I'll ship it you :)

EDIT- Although I have no way to confirm if my drive is still working or not.
 
Floppies are still in use but 5¼-inch (full height) drives will be difficult to find. you will have to keep searching. Best bet if to contact vendors who deal in second hand PC. they even might give a drive for free, if they manage to find a working model:p

btw, I do have 3½-inch Sony floppy drive lying around. Let me know if you need that
 
ya i too have 11yr old 3½ sony floppy disk drive. But i still use it once a year on some needy persons old comp. So cant sell it and is very dear to me.:)
 
Offtopic: what type of data your brother have on those floppies, their size are mere 1.2MB, i wonder what he might have backuped.

Also floppies are prone to damage quickly, i hope that those floppies of your are in good health :)
 
CA50 said:
Offtopic: what type of data your brother have on those floppies, their size are mere 1.2MB, i wonder what he might have backuped.

Also floppies are prone to damage quickly, i hope that those floppies of your are in good health :)
Click to expand...

he's interested only in personal files (text, word, excel etc.) and programs created in Visual Basic, Clipper etc

well those days 1.2MB meant a lot !! and yes these 1.2MB floppies were less prone to damage than the 3 1/2 inches (1.44MB)

for historical reference - at the starting time of evolution guys used to boot from one floppy(MS DOS), create ramdrive to store OS files, inserted 2nd floppy of applications/games and used Basic/Turbo C/ Harvard Graphics/ Wordstar/Wordperfect/Corel/Ventura etc. There used to be self-bootable games also.
 
mktw said:
he's interested only in personal files (text, word, excel etc.) and programs created in Visual Basic, Clipper etc
well those days 1.2MB meant a lot !! and yes these 1.2MB floppies were less prone to damage than the 3 1/2 inches (1.44MB)

for historical reference - at the starting time of evolution guys used to boot from one floppy(MS DOS), create ramdrive to store OS files, inserted 2nd floppy of applications/games and used Basic/Turbo C/ Harvard Graphics/ Wordstar/Wordperfect/Corel/Ventura etc. There used to be self-bootable games also.
Click to expand...
Great if you get the floppies working, because i had some floppies which went kaput after some months :(
 
5¼-inch floppies in 1998 - are you kidding? Other than in ancient systems, the world had already moved to 3½ floppies by 1998. The last I used 5¼ inch floppies was back in the 1992~1994 period. I have a old computer from the 1997 period stashed away in the attic, but that is also equipped with a 3½ disk drive.

And yeah, there was no way 5¼ inch disks were more reliable than 3½ inch ones.

In any case, the only places you can find these Pre-historic drives are in old govt college computers or govt offices/banks. It is highly unlikely that you will find a disk drive, but may be you can find a whole computer being sold off cheap.
 
well... i didn't say by 1998 world didn't moved to 3 1/2, in fact it did, but as i mentioned 3 1/2 floppies were very unreliable in comparison to 5 1/4, and my brother's friend had access to computer which had both the disk-drives so kept backups in 5 1/4.
 
Guys stop arguing about the evolution regarding floppies and history copies. Let him find his gold when we already have listed the possible den's.
 
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