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5 1/4 Floppy

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Goronae

Goronae

Member
​
Joined
Apr 21, 2003
Location
Boston Area
Hiya, my parents are interested in recoving their old science stuff they had backed up on 5 1/4 inch floppies. Is there any place where I can buy these drives, and second of all will the drive be recognized on XP. Or is there a way to transfer the data from the 5 1/4 inches to another storage type without buying a whole "new" old computer that has a 3 1/2 and 5/14 floppy. Thanks in advance
 
The only things that I can think of is search online or go to ebay to find one. It shouldnt be to hard to locate one. Getting it to work with XP could be a trip. I haven't heard of anyone trying it before. Hopefully they put in a generic driver for them. Good luck.
 
Getting the drive to work won't be a problem. XP doesn't care if it's a 3.5 or a 5.25. You make that distinction in the BIOS.

ebay is a great idea to find one.

The other real issue is: did the data survive over time?
 
I fould one that I know works but the connector is kinda weird. Its a

____________________
| ________________ |
| |________________| |
|____________________|
female end with a male end tap on the 5 1/4 that fits into the cable. This cable seems to fis into the floppy cable spot in the Mobo but im getting no readings in XP.
 
I assume the cable looks kinda like the one below, with the 5-1/4 drive using the connector on the right?
P2-FloppyCable.jpg



Try flipping the cable on the mobo end. You could have very well got the cable installed backwards. Also, check in your BIOS to make sure that it knows you are going to have two floppy drives. If the BIOS dosen't see the drive, XP definatly isn't.


I've got a 5-1/4" running in my XP box right now :) The only issues XP has with them is that the Windows formatter will not detect and format the disks. However, you can still use the commandline to make it format should you want to.

JigPu
 
allright thanks its working now. The only prob is software for reading the files. is it possible to put DOS on a new machine and or use the DOS promp in windows? FI you can use the DOS prompt how do you use it?
 
Now there's the rub. You will need the software that they used to create the data. If the data is in .txt format or other common extension, you can use common programs to open and view the data.

What are the file extensions on the floppies?

I have found that many DOS programs *do* work in XP but not all.
 
I have the floppy for the program used to create the data the extention which is .r2d. What I need is acsess to the dos prompt to see whether I can install the program and use it to read the data
 
I tried running some old DOS games from the 1980's and found a problem.

Since some of them were clock-based, gamespeed was determined by the processor. Although some of them had settings in their setup to use a slider to control this, it was completely unplayable.

The next time I go home, I'm gonna have to dig up those old games and give them a shot again.
 
You need to open the "Command Prompt" application under the Accesories menu. To get to the drive type "[drive letter]:" (without quotes) then to change directories type "cd [directory]". To see what files are in a directory type "dir". If the listing is too long to fit on the sceen you can try "dir /w" or "dir | more". To start programs just type their name (no need for the .exe extention). If you want to toggle fullscreen mode on and off press ALT+ENTER.

Alternativly to the Command Prompt app is a Windows ME/9x bootdisk (many computers ran with no hard drives up until the very late 80's so you could probably just install the program on the bootdisk). The disadvantage to this is that you won't be able to access your HDs if they're formatted in NTFS.
 
I don't think that you have to run it from the cmd prompt. If the floppy contains the 'Install.exe' file, you can just double click on it to install. Now I'm basing this on the programs that I have at work. For reference, we are moving from Win 95 (not a typo, Win 95) to win XP. As part of this migration, I had to get the DOS programs from each department and see which ones would work on XP and which ones we had to purchase new. When all was said an done, every DOS program we had worked on XP. *who knew*

Of course, your milage may vary.
 
hehe dos wow..that takes me back..and im only 17! had a computer for the longest time without windows. Was about in 2000 we scored a win95b machine.

Something you may try, is either making a partition for DOS, or if you have an older hard drive put dos on it (it will have to be drive C: tho) or, virtual PC/VMware could be an alternative.

Are you sure its DOS and not Apple II/commodore/ADAM or something? (jw)
 
Mr.Radar said:
You need to open the "Command Prompt" application under the Accesories menu. To get to the drive type "[drive letter]:" (without quotes) then to change directories type "cd [directory]". To see what files are in a directory type "dir". If the listing is too long to fit on the sceen you can try "dir /w" or "dir | more". To start programs just type their name (no need for the .exe extention). If you want to toggle fullscreen mode on and off press ALT+ENTER.
Click to expand...
Or you can save a few clicks and go Start -> Run. Type in cmd and hit ENTER. Command prompt will open right up.

JigPu
 
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