USB floppy disk drive for PC

Prophet (2497)

16-01-2014, 11:42

I'm looking for a PC USB disk drive (my PC does not have a disk drive anymore, wanted to install one but there's not connectors for it on the motherboard !). And I'd like to avoid having another machine under my desk just for writing disks...

I've seen lots of cheap models on eBay, but I'd like to be sure that they are handling non High-Density disks, and that disk images can be transfered too (not only files).

Have you guys tried some ? What would you recommend ?

By meits

Scribe (6577)

16-01-2014, 11:59

I've had one, but it broke quite soon. In the beginning it worked just the same as an internal diskdrive and it accepted DD doublesided disks like you want it to... After not using it for half a year orso it started to be more and more picky until I had it and bought myself a CF interface... Never missed the little thing afterwards...

My advice, don't go for an external USB diskdrive, but have yourself a Megaflashrom SCC+ SD... No more need for the ever decaying disks anymore...

By Prodatron

Paragon (1857)

16-01-2014, 12:43

I am using an USB disc drive as well for quick transfer of (small) data between my Notebook and my MSX. This is working fine here since years.
Afaik handling DD discs is not a problem for any USB disc drive.
But unfortunately I don't know any software, which is able to de-dump disc images to such drives. I am not sure, if this is even possible...

By Louthrax

Prophet (2497)

16-01-2014, 12:55

Meits wrote:

My advice, don't go for an external USB diskdrive, but have yourself a Megaflashrom SCC+ SD... No more need for the ever decaying disks anymore...

I already have one, definitively a great piece of hardware ! But in a few occasions, I need floppy disks (like the NOP Trax demo which works only on a real disk drive). I manage to do transfers with fdload / fdsave using a real MSX, but I have to transfer the image SD Card, and then write the image to disk on MSX. Well, maybe I'll stay on this solution, don't want to have another crappy device !

By Retrofan

Paragon (1339)

16-01-2014, 13:05

I also have an USB FDD drive for PC. The box says it supports DD and HD, but Windows 7 only accepts HD, why and how to fix it?

By Prodatron

Paragon (1857)

16-01-2014, 13:38

Existing DD discs (already formatted, closed HD-hole) are not readable? I am also using Win7 without problems.

By AxelStone

Prophet (3199)

16-01-2014, 14:14

Windows XP and succesive only supports HD formating. I've Win7 and USB floppy but can't handle DD floppies :-(

By edoz

Prophet (2501)

16-01-2014, 14:24

format a: /t:80 /n:9

By Louthrax

Prophet (2497)

16-01-2014, 14:41

I've found this on eBay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Genuine-Dell-Optiplex-745-755-760-780-GX520-GX620-Floppy-Drive-FD3238T-UT835-/380817296363
So that's supposed to be an IDE interface, that could be plugged on mother boards that don't have floppy connectors.
But maybe it's a DELL-only drive ?

Edit: it's only $9.99 but the shipping to Europe is $46.60 !!

By Prodatron

Paragon (1857)

16-01-2014, 15:23

AxelStone wrote:

Windows XP and succesive only supports HD formating. I've Win7 and USB floppy but can't handle DD floppies :-(

That's strange. Maybe you have to format it on another system in DD/720K format. But then reading/writing on Win7 should work (I am running Windows 7 Professionel 64bit).

By Marq

Champion (387)

16-01-2014, 15:27

I and a couple of others have had good experiences with second-hand Toshiba drives (PA3109U-1FDD). Need to be rather careful indeed, since there are plenty of external drives that don't support DD at all. As to dumping images onto disks, I don't expect even the Toshiba to work. There are options, such as Nowind or HxC that would let you copy disks on the MSX itself.