Is there such a thing as an external 5.25" floppy drive?

[Edmond Dantes]

One reason I'm not much of a PC game collector: Every once in awhile, I'll see a game I want on ebay or somewhere... and its on a 5.25" floppy, with no equivalent 3.25" disk included.

So what's a man to do?

I know there are external 3.25" drives, the question is are there external 5.25" drives?

(Yes, I've heard the solution of "buy it, then download the game off some abandonware site" but I don't like that solution, and in any case if I'm buying it I don't want to warez it. I've also tried plugging an internal drive into my old PC, but for some reason that won't detect it).

Thanks in advance.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Someone was working on an external 5.25" solution... I think it was even mentioned in this forum at one point.

[Gameguy]

I've also tried plugging an internal drive into my old PC, but for some reason that won't detect it.

I've installed a drive into my old Win 95 PC, you have to change the settings in the bios to get it to work. It's not plug and play.

[Jorpho]

Yes, I've heard the solution of "buy it, then download the game off some abandonware site" but I don't like that solution, and in any case if I'm buying it I don't want to warez it.

Considering how unreliable floppy media can be, I think this is an entirely reasonable solution, actually.

Anyway, yes, I have at least once in my life seen an external 5.25" floppy drive. I think it plugged into a parallel port (which is something else you'd be lucky to get working perfectly in XP).

As for USB, I'm sure Kyroflux must be good for something.
http://www.kryoflux.com/

[blue lander]

I used to have an external 5.25" drive. Old floppy drive controllers have what looks like a parallel port, that's what they used.

[NayusDante]

This isn't going to help you, but yes, there is such a thing.

[Edmond Dantes]

Okay, other question: Is there an MS-DOS program thats similar to WinImage?

[Collector_Gaming]

This isn't going to help you, but yes, there is such a thing.

i remember these (i remember one apple computer a school i was in had 2 hooked up to the same computer stacked on top of each other strangely enough )

although i don't remember a External for PC's

i know you can run internals on original releases of Windows 95
Worst case scenario you could just revert back to Windows 3.1

But me being the way i am i would just search around at Yard Sales or flea markets or Craigslist for old pc's

If i was on here like 6 months ago and you told me and was willing to pay for shipping i could have sent one to you for the cost of shipping as i had i think 2 of them.. but i scrapped them as they were cluttering up my living space and there is absolutely no market in vermont for old pcs (barely any for the old Apple's which as we know are more collectible)

[Jorpho]

Okay, other question: Is there an MS-DOS program thats similar to WinImage?

You mean to create and write floppy images? Sure, I think VGA-COPY is the one most frequently recommended.

[Edmond Dantes]

Yeah its starting to seem like "buy/build a 386 or something" is a more likely option than finding an external drive, so if I get serious about old PC games that's what I may do.

And Jorpho, yes that kind of thing is exactly what I'm looking for.

[Griking]

One reason I'm not much of a PC game collector: Every once in awhile, I'll see a game I want on ebay or somewhere... and its on a 5.25" floppy, with no equivalent 3.25" disk included.

So what's a man to do?

I know there are external 3.25" drives, the question is are there external 5.25" drives?

(Yes, I've heard the solution of "buy it, then download the game off some abandonware site" but I don't like that solution, and in any case if I'm buying it I don't want to warez it. I've also tried plugging an internal drive into my old PC, but for some reason that won't detect it).

Thanks in advance.

I'm sure we all have our own moral line but if/when I purchase an old PC game that only comes on 5 1/4" I kind of feel that I'm somewhat justified in downloading a cracked version of it off the web.

[Edmond Dantes]

To be honest, I'd like it if Abandonware sites would offer images of the original disks. Usually though, they offer installed-to-the-hard-drive in zip form, which can be a pain for some games (want to put Pool of Radiance somewhere other than the uploader did? It's doable, but you have to manually edit a config file or two)

Moreover I feel like an installation procedure helps legitimize the experience.

[Flack]

The FC5025 is a USB controller for 5 1/4 floppy drives.

http://www.deviceside.com/fc5025.html

Reads PC, C64, Apple, TI/99, and a lot of other formats. Works great (I have one). Just know going in that it won't read the back side of C64/Apple "flippy" disks (it's a drive limitations). For everything PC related, it works great. FWIW, it's read only. I believe it saves disks in IMG format.

Once you get them on your PC you can mount them with something like WinImg or you can dump them back out to a 3.5 disk. Or you can unzip them onto a directory, use the subst command, and trick your machine into thinking that directory is a floppy drive.

[Scott45]

Yeah, I actually had one for my Coleco ADAM, still in my mom's attic as far as I know...

[Tupin]

The FC5025 is a USB controller for 5 1/4 floppy drives.

http://www.deviceside.com/fc5025.html

Reads PC, C64, Apple, TI/99, and a lot of other formats. Works great (I have one). Just know going in that it won't read the back side of C64/Apple "flippy" disks (it's a drive limitations). For everything PC related, it works great. FWIW, it's read only. I believe it saves disks in IMG format.

Once you get them on your PC you can mount them with something like WinImg or you can dump them back out to a 3.5 disk. Or you can unzip them onto a directory, use the subst command, and trick your machine into thinking that directory is a floppy drive.

Wow, sounds pretty cool. How would you hook up a C64 drive to it? Could you just use a PC one?

This sounds cool for dumping game images onto a PC and running them in DOSBox/emulators...

[Jorpho]

Once you get them on your PC you can mount them with something like WinImg or you can dump them back out to a 3.5 disk. Or you can unzip them onto a directory, use the subst command, and trick your machine into thinking that directory is a floppy drive.

All you really need nowadays is Virtual Floppy Drive. It's like Daemon Tools for floppies, and it's free! (I never much cared for WinImage's outrageous shareware registration fee.)

[Kitsune Sniper]

All you really need nowadays is Virtual Floppy Drive. It's like Daemon Tools for floppies, and it's free! (I never much cared for WinImage's outrageous shareware registration fee.)

IF you can find it.

The website went down last year. I managed to salvage a copy of the program off my hard drive, but I keep forgetting to upload it to my website...

Edit: That device is $55?! Yow...

[Flack]

Wow, sounds pretty cool. How would you hook up a C64 drive to it? Could you just use a PC one?

This sounds cool for dumping game images onto a PC and running them in DOSBox/emulators...

You can use a PC floppy drive to read any of those formats. But again, you can't read the back side of a "flippy" disk without physically modifying a floppy drive.

[Jorpho]

IF you can find it.

The website went down last year. I managed to salvage a copy of the program off my hard drive, but I keep forgetting to upload it to my website...

Buh? Google seems to have no problems.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Buh? Google seems to have no problems.

I had a hard time finding it last year.

I assume you're talking about the Japanese program that used to be hosted here? There's another program with the same name that as far as I know, had nothing to do with that one... I could be wrong, of course.

Edit: Ah, looks like the guy moved the files to Sourceforge. Well, that's good. My apologies for the mistake.