USB Floppies that are flexible? Cleaning a 3.5" drive?
Hey folks, two asks -- I'm looking for advice: Are there any USB or external floppy drive arrangements that are flexible like internal floppy drives for allowing formatting and/or reading of unusual sector sizes or formats? Ex: 800KB Atari ST floppies and PC DOS disks formatted in unusual sizes .. Second question is -what is the easiest way to clean the heads on a 3.5" floppy? If I have a bunch of 'suspect' floppies that I want to clean the head between every disk it seems a little painful to disassemble the drive enough to see the heads and clean. Are there any alternatives? (I'm used to 5.25" drives where there's often enough space in there to wipe without disassembly). Maybe there's a good (modern) source of 3.5" cleaning floppies? (P.S. I have a K6-3+ PC I can put a fresh OS on so I may be cleaning a legacy 3.5" drive instead of a USB floppy). Thanks! John
I recently purchased a Dell FDDM-101 for that very purpose. It is a laptop drive, but it has a mini-USB port on it that allows external use. It reportedly is one of the few USB floppies that can do so, but I have not yet tried it. As far as cleaning, I think that cleaning diskettes are your best bet. On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:00 AM John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hey folks, two asks -- I'm looking for advice:
Are there any USB or external floppy drive arrangements that are flexible like internal floppy drives for allowing formatting and/or reading of unusual sector sizes or formats?
Ex: 800KB Atari ST floppies and PC DOS disks formatted in unusual sizes
..
Second question is -what is the easiest way to clean the heads on a 3.5" floppy? If I have a bunch of 'suspect' floppies that I want to clean the head between every disk it seems a little painful to disassemble the drive enough to see the heads and clean. Are there any alternatives?
(I'm used to 5.25" drives where there's often enough space in there to wipe without disassembly). Maybe there's a good (modern) source of 3.5" cleaning floppies?
(P.S. I have a K6-3+ PC I can put a fresh OS on so I may be cleaning a legacy 3.5" drive instead of a USB floppy).
Thanks! John
Forgot to mention that a Greaseweazle is also highly recommended for this scenario. It is exactly why I purchased this the Dell floppy drive. This combination should let you write most 3.5” diskette images. On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:08 AM Dean Notarnicola <dean.notarnicola@vcfed.org> wrote:
I recently purchased a Dell FDDM-101 for that very purpose. It is a laptop drive, but it has a mini-USB port on it that allows external use. It reportedly is one of the few USB floppies that can do so, but I have not yet tried it.
As far as cleaning, I think that cleaning diskettes are your best bet.
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:00 AM John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hey folks, two asks -- I'm looking for advice:
Are there any USB or external floppy drive arrangements that are flexible like internal floppy drives for allowing formatting and/or reading of unusual sector sizes or formats?
Ex: 800KB Atari ST floppies and PC DOS disks formatted in unusual sizes
..
Second question is -what is the easiest way to clean the heads on a 3.5" floppy? If I have a bunch of 'suspect' floppies that I want to clean the head between every disk it seems a little painful to disassemble the drive enough to see the heads and clean. Are there any alternatives?
(I'm used to 5.25" drives where there's often enough space in there to wipe without disassembly). Maybe there's a good (modern) source of 3.5" cleaning floppies?
(P.S. I have a K6-3+ PC I can put a fresh OS on so I may be cleaning a legacy 3.5" drive instead of a USB floppy).
Thanks! John
I have a Greaseweazle as well. I've not used it a ton, but it works great and unlike other flux tools can be used to write disk images, too. The price for an assembled board is great, too! On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 7:13 AM Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Forgot to mention that a Greaseweazle is also highly recommended for this scenario. It is exactly why I purchased this the Dell floppy drive. This combination should let you write most 3.5” diskette images.
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:08 AM Dean Notarnicola < dean.notarnicola@vcfed.org> wrote:
I recently purchased a Dell FDDM-101 for that very purpose. It is a laptop drive, but it has a mini-USB port on it that allows external use. It reportedly is one of the few USB floppies that can do so, but I have not yet tried it.
As far as cleaning, I think that cleaning diskettes are your best bet.
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:00 AM John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hey folks, two asks -- I'm looking for advice:
Are there any USB or external floppy drive arrangements that are flexible like internal floppy drives for allowing formatting and/or reading of unusual sector sizes or formats?
Ex: 800KB Atari ST floppies and PC DOS disks formatted in unusual sizes
..
Second question is -what is the easiest way to clean the heads on a 3.5" floppy? If I have a bunch of 'suspect' floppies that I want to clean the head between every disk it seems a little painful to disassemble the drive enough to see the heads and clean. Are there any alternatives?
(I'm used to 5.25" drives where there's often enough space in there to wipe without disassembly). Maybe there's a good (modern) source of 3.5" cleaning floppies?
(P.S. I have a K6-3+ PC I can put a fresh OS on so I may be cleaning a legacy 3.5" drive instead of a USB floppy).
Thanks! John
-- Jason Perkins 313 355 0085
Hmm for the Greaseweazle - wouldn't you want a regular internal floppy with a 3.5" connector? This does seem like an interesting device for allowing use of a 'real' floppy drive to read unusual formats.. that might meet my need as I have a few 3.5" drives (internal) laying around.. was just hoping to use on a modern computer without a floppy port On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:13 AM Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Forgot to mention that a Greaseweazle is also highly recommended for this scenario. It is exactly why I purchased this the Dell floppy drive. This combination should let you write most 3.5” diskette images.
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:08 AM Dean Notarnicola < dean.notarnicola@vcfed.org> wrote:
I recently purchased a Dell FDDM-101 for that very purpose. It is a laptop drive, but it has a mini-USB port on it that allows external use. It reportedly is one of the few USB floppies that can do so, but I have not yet tried it.
As far as cleaning, I think that cleaning diskettes are your best bet.
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:00 AM John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hey folks, two asks -- I'm looking for advice:
Are there any USB or external floppy drive arrangements that are flexible like internal floppy drives for allowing formatting and/or reading of unusual sector sizes or formats?
Ex: 800KB Atari ST floppies and PC DOS disks formatted in unusual sizes
..
Second question is -what is the easiest way to clean the heads on a 3.5" floppy? If I have a bunch of 'suspect' floppies that I want to clean the head between every disk it seems a little painful to disassemble the drive enough to see the heads and clean. Are there any alternatives?
(I'm used to 5.25" drives where there's often enough space in there to wipe without disassembly). Maybe there's a good (modern) source of 3.5" cleaning floppies?
(P.S. I have a K6-3+ PC I can put a fresh OS on so I may be cleaning a legacy 3.5" drive instead of a USB floppy).
Thanks! John
You can try the Dell dive I indicated without the Greaseweazle. YMMV On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:19 AM John Heritage <john.heritage@gmail.com> wrote:
Hmm for the Greaseweazle - wouldn't you want a regular internal floppy with a 3.5" connector?
This does seem like an interesting device for allowing use of a 'real' floppy drive to read unusual formats.. that might meet my need as I have a few 3.5" drives (internal) laying around.. was just hoping to use on a modern computer without a floppy port
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:13 AM Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Forgot to mention that a Greaseweazle is also highly recommended for this scenario. It is exactly why I purchased this the Dell floppy drive. This combination should let you write most 3.5” diskette images.
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:08 AM Dean Notarnicola < dean.notarnicola@vcfed.org> wrote:
I recently purchased a Dell FDDM-101 for that very purpose. It is a laptop drive, but it has a mini-USB port on it that allows external use. It reportedly is one of the few USB floppies that can do so, but I have not yet tried it.
As far as cleaning, I think that cleaning diskettes are your best bet.
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:00 AM John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hey folks, two asks -- I'm looking for advice:
Are there any USB or external floppy drive arrangements that are flexible like internal floppy drives for allowing formatting and/or reading of unusual sector sizes or formats?
Ex: 800KB Atari ST floppies and PC DOS disks formatted in unusual sizes
..
Second question is -what is the easiest way to clean the heads on a 3.5" floppy? If I have a bunch of 'suspect' floppies that I want to clean the head between every disk it seems a little painful to disassemble the drive enough to see the heads and clean. Are there any alternatives?
(I'm used to 5.25" drives where there's often enough space in there to wipe without disassembly). Maybe there's a good (modern) source of 3.5" cleaning floppies?
(P.S. I have a K6-3+ PC I can put a fresh OS on so I may be cleaning a legacy 3.5" drive instead of a USB floppy).
Thanks! John
Is that floppy drive from a latitude D series Kind of a light to medium gray color? Sent from: My extremely complicated, hand held electronic device.
On Dec 8, 2020, at 10:08 AM, Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I recently purchased a Dell FDDM-101 for that very purpose. It is a laptop drive, but it has a mini-USB port on it that allows external use. It reportedly is one of the few USB floppies that can do so, but I have not yet tried it.
As far as cleaning, I think that cleaning diskettes are your best bet.
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:00 AM John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote: Hey folks, two asks -- I'm looking for advice: Are there any USB or external floppy drive arrangements that are flexible like internal floppy drives for allowing formatting and/or reading of unusual sector sizes or formats? Ex: 800KB Atari ST floppies and PC DOS disks formatted in unusual sizes .. Second question is -what is the easiest way to clean the heads on a 3.5" floppy? If I have a bunch of 'suspect' floppies that I want to clean the head between every disk it seems a little painful to disassemble the drive enough to see the heads and clean. Are there any alternatives? (I'm used to 5.25" drives where there's often enough space in there to wipe without disassembly). Maybe there's a good (modern) source of 3.5" cleaning floppies? (P.S. I have a K6-3+ PC I can put a fresh OS on so I may be cleaning a legacy 3.5" drive instead of a USB floppy). Thanks! John
Yes, it is. On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:55 AM Sentrytv <sentrytv@yahoo.com> wrote:
Is that floppy drive from a latitude D series Kind of a light to medium gray color?
Sent from: My extremely complicated, hand held electronic device.
On Dec 8, 2020, at 10:08 AM, Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I recently purchased a Dell FDDM-101 for that very purpose. It is a laptop drive, but it has a mini-USB port on it that allows external use. It reportedly is one of the few USB floppies that can do so, but I have not yet tried it.
As far as cleaning, I think that cleaning diskettes are your best bet.
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:00 AM John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote: Hey folks, two asks -- I'm looking for advice: Are there any USB or external floppy drive arrangements that are flexible like internal floppy drives for allowing formatting and/or reading of unusual sector sizes or formats? Ex: 800KB Atari ST floppies and PC DOS disks formatted in unusual sizes .. Second question is -what is the easiest way to clean the heads on a 3.5" floppy? If I have a bunch of 'suspect' floppies that I want to clean the head between every disk it seems a little painful to disassemble the drive enough to see the heads and clean. Are there any alternatives? (I'm used to 5.25" drives where there's often enough space in there to wipe without disassembly). Maybe there's a good (modern) source of 3.5" cleaning floppies? (P.S. I have a K6-3+ PC I can put a fresh OS on so I may be cleaning a legacy 3.5" drive instead of a USB floppy). Thanks! John
Cheapest one I found with a quick search, but there are lots of options for cleaning disks https://www.floppydisk.com/floppy-drive-cleaner Tony
IMHO there is no modern solid USB substitute for the 720K disk drive, for both software and hardware reasons. I'd set up a "tweener" PC for this kind of work that has an actual 3.5" drive installed and an OS like Windows 2000. You can also install a 5 1/4" drive.. Bill On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:00 AM John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hey folks, two asks -- I'm looking for advice:
Are there any USB or external floppy drive arrangements that are flexible like internal floppy drives for allowing formatting and/or reading of unusual sector sizes or formats?
Ex: 800KB Atari ST floppies and PC DOS disks formatted in unusual sizes
..
Second question is -what is the easiest way to clean the heads on a 3.5" floppy? If I have a bunch of 'suspect' floppies that I want to clean the head between every disk it seems a little painful to disassemble the drive enough to see the heads and clean. Are there any alternatives?
(I'm used to 5.25" drives where there's often enough space in there to wipe without disassembly). Maybe there's a good (modern) source of 3.5" cleaning floppies?
(P.S. I have a K6-3+ PC I can put a fresh OS on so I may be cleaning a legacy 3.5" drive instead of a USB floppy).
Thanks! John
Thanks Bill - I was thinking Win 2000 for my K6-3+ system; I wasn't sure if that was too far away from DOS to be able to read the various formats but i'll give it a go as well.. (I can refresh myself on how to dual boot older OSes.. though I'd really like to somehow shoehorn a modern SATA SSD into this system that only has IDE / PCI slots) On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 11:59 AM Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
IMHO there is no modern solid USB substitute for the 720K disk drive, for both software and hardware reasons. I'd set up a "tweener" PC for this kind of work that has an actual 3.5" drive installed and an OS like Windows 2000. You can also install a 5 1/4" drive.. Bill
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:00 AM John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hey folks, two asks -- I'm looking for advice:
Are there any USB or external floppy drive arrangements that are flexible like internal floppy drives for allowing formatting and/or reading of unusual sector sizes or formats?
Ex: 800KB Atari ST floppies and PC DOS disks formatted in unusual sizes
..
Second question is -what is the easiest way to clean the heads on a 3.5" floppy? If I have a bunch of 'suspect' floppies that I want to clean the head between every disk it seems a little painful to disassemble the drive enough to see the heads and clean. Are there any alternatives?
(I'm used to 5.25" drives where there's often enough space in there to wipe without disassembly). Maybe there's a good (modern) source of 3.5" cleaning floppies?
(P.S. I have a K6-3+ PC I can put a fresh OS on so I may be cleaning a legacy 3.5" drive instead of a USB floppy).
Thanks! John
There are PCI SATA boards out there. I think I have a Promise one. Bootable BIOS. That’s in a HP Pentium-4 machine, but I’d think a K6 era machine wouldn’t have trouble with drive sizes either. I might get me one of these Greaseweasels... -- Jameel Akari
On Dec 8, 2020, at 12:12 PM, John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Thanks Bill - I was thinking Win 2000 for my K6-3+ system; I wasn't sure if that was too far away from DOS to be able to read the various formats but i'll give it a go as well..
(I can refresh myself on how to dual boot older OSes.. though I'd really like to somehow shoehorn a modern SATA SSD into this system that only has IDE / PCI slots)
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 11:59 AM Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
IMHO there is no modern solid USB substitute for the 720K disk drive, for both software and hardware reasons. I'd set up a "tweener" PC for this kind of work that has an actual 3.5" drive installed and an OS like Windows 2000. You can also install a 5 1/4" drive.. Bill
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:00 AM John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hey folks, two asks -- I'm looking for advice:
Are there any USB or external floppy drive arrangements that are flexible like internal floppy drives for allowing formatting and/or reading of unusual sector sizes or formats?
Ex: 800KB Atari ST floppies and PC DOS disks formatted in unusual sizes
..
Second question is -what is the easiest way to clean the heads on a 3.5" floppy? If I have a bunch of 'suspect' floppies that I want to clean the head between every disk it seems a little painful to disassemble the drive enough to see the heads and clean. Are there any alternatives?
(I'm used to 5.25" drives where there's often enough space in there to wipe without disassembly). Maybe there's a good (modern) source of 3.5" cleaning floppies?
(P.S. I have a K6-3+ PC I can put a fresh OS on so I may be cleaning a legacy 3.5" drive instead of a USB floppy).
Thanks! John
I have a ~2003 vintage NEC usb floppy drive that can read and write, but not format PC 720k disks. Inside it has a normal laptop disk mechanism, with an external USB converter board. I can look up the model if anyone is interested. On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 8:59 AM Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
IMHO there is no modern solid USB substitute for the 720K disk drive, for both software and hardware reasons. I'd set up a "tweener" PC for this kind of work that has an actual 3.5" drive installed and an OS like Windows 2000. You can also install a 5 1/4" drive.. Bill
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:00 AM John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hey folks, two asks -- I'm looking for advice:
Are there any USB or external floppy drive arrangements that are flexible like internal floppy drives for allowing formatting and/or reading of unusual sector sizes or formats?
Ex: 800KB Atari ST floppies and PC DOS disks formatted in unusual sizes
..
Second question is -what is the easiest way to clean the heads on a 3.5" floppy? If I have a bunch of 'suspect' floppies that I want to clean the head between every disk it seems a little painful to disassemble the drive enough to see the heads and clean. Are there any alternatives?
(I'm used to 5.25" drives where there's often enough space in there to wipe without disassembly). Maybe there's a good (modern) source of 3.5" cleaning floppies?
(P.S. I have a K6-3+ PC I can put a fresh OS on so I may be cleaning a legacy 3.5" drive instead of a USB floppy).
Thanks! John
-- Jason Perkins 313 355 0085
I have a LaCie USB 3.5" drive (model "MYFLOPPY3") that handles 720KB disks just fine, I use it all the time for those. These will never be able to do arbitrary non-PeeCee disk formats, though. -Dave On 12/8/20 1:57 PM, Jason Perkins via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
I have a ~2003 vintage NEC usb floppy drive that can read and write, but not format PC 720k disks. Inside it has a normal laptop disk mechanism, with an external USB converter board.
I can look up the model if anyone is interested.
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 8:59 AM Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
IMHO there is no modern solid USB substitute for the 720K disk drive, for both software and hardware reasons. I'd set up a "tweener" PC for this kind of work that has an actual 3.5" drive installed and an OS like Windows 2000. You can also install a 5 1/4" drive.. Bill
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:00 AM John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hey folks, two asks -- I'm looking for advice:
Are there any USB or external floppy drive arrangements that are flexible like internal floppy drives for allowing formatting and/or reading of unusual sector sizes or formats?
Ex: 800KB Atari ST floppies and PC DOS disks formatted in unusual sizes
..
Second question is -what is the easiest way to clean the heads on a 3.5" floppy? If I have a bunch of 'suspect' floppies that I want to clean the head between every disk it seems a little painful to disassemble the drive enough to see the heads and clean. Are there any alternatives?
(I'm used to 5.25" drives where there's often enough space in there to wipe without disassembly). Maybe there's a good (modern) source of 3.5" cleaning floppies?
(P.S. I have a K6-3+ PC I can put a fresh OS on so I may be cleaning a legacy 3.5" drive instead of a USB floppy).
Thanks! John
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
you mean format 720K too? a USB drive that formats 720K using what OS? b On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 2:11 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I have a LaCie USB 3.5" drive (model "MYFLOPPY3") that handles 720KB disks just fine, I use it all the time for those.
These will never be able to do arbitrary non-PeeCee disk formats, though.
-Dave
On 12/8/20 1:57 PM, Jason Perkins via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
I have a ~2003 vintage NEC usb floppy drive that can read and write, but not format PC 720k disks. Inside it has a normal laptop disk mechanism, with an external USB converter board.
I can look up the model if anyone is interested.
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 8:59 AM Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
IMHO there is no modern solid USB substitute for the 720K disk drive, for both software and hardware reasons. I'd set up a "tweener" PC for this kind of work that has an actual 3.5" drive installed and an OS like Windows 2000. You can also install a 5 1/4" drive.. Bill
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:00 AM John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hey folks, two asks -- I'm looking for advice:
Are there any USB or external floppy drive arrangements that are flexible like internal floppy drives for allowing formatting and/or reading of unusual sector sizes or formats?
Ex: 800KB Atari ST floppies and PC DOS disks formatted in unusual sizes
..
Second question is -what is the easiest way to clean the heads on a 3.5" floppy? If I have a bunch of 'suspect' floppies that I want to clean the head between every disk it seems a little painful to disassemble the drive enough to see the heads and clean. Are there any alternatives?
(I'm used to 5.25" drives where there's often enough space in there to wipe without disassembly). Maybe there's a good (modern) source of 3.5" cleaning floppies?
(P.S. I have a K6-3+ PC I can put a fresh OS on so I may be cleaning a legacy 3.5" drive instead of a USB floppy).
Thanks! John
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
Hmm, I don't remember if I've actually formatted disks with it, but I can give it a shot and find out. I've used it exclusively under Linux. -Dave On 12/8/20 2:30 PM, Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
you mean format 720K too? a USB drive that formats 720K using what OS? b
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 2:11 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I have a LaCie USB 3.5" drive (model "MYFLOPPY3") that handles 720KB disks just fine, I use it all the time for those.
These will never be able to do arbitrary non-PeeCee disk formats, though.
-Dave
On 12/8/20 1:57 PM, Jason Perkins via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
I have a ~2003 vintage NEC usb floppy drive that can read and write, but not format PC 720k disks. Inside it has a normal laptop disk mechanism, with an external USB converter board.
I can look up the model if anyone is interested.
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 8:59 AM Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
IMHO there is no modern solid USB substitute for the 720K disk drive, for both software and hardware reasons. I'd set up a "tweener" PC for this kind of work that has an actual 3.5" drive installed and an OS like Windows 2000. You can also install a 5 1/4" drive.. Bill
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:00 AM John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hey folks, two asks -- I'm looking for advice:
Are there any USB or external floppy drive arrangements that are flexible like internal floppy drives for allowing formatting and/or reading of unusual sector sizes or formats?
Ex: 800KB Atari ST floppies and PC DOS disks formatted in unusual sizes
..
Second question is -what is the easiest way to clean the heads on a 3.5" floppy? If I have a bunch of 'suspect' floppies that I want to clean the head between every disk it seems a little painful to disassemble the drive enough to see the heads and clean. Are there any alternatives?
(I'm used to 5.25" drives where there's often enough space in there to wipe without disassembly). Maybe there's a good (modern) source of 3.5" cleaning floppies?
(P.S. I have a K6-3+ PC I can put a fresh OS on so I may be cleaning a legacy 3.5" drive instead of a USB floppy).
Thanks! John
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
I don't have my USB 3.5 floppy here in front of me, but that was always the issue, formatting disks to be 720K. I know how to use the command line set tracks and sectors, etc. but I recall, and it has been a while so I may be mistaken, but I seem to remember it not working. b On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 2:32 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hmm, I don't remember if I've actually formatted disks with it, but I can give it a shot and find out. I've used it exclusively under Linux.
-Dave
On 12/8/20 2:30 PM, Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
you mean format 720K too? a USB drive that formats 720K using what OS? b
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 2:11 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I have a LaCie USB 3.5" drive (model "MYFLOPPY3") that handles 720KB disks just fine, I use it all the time for those.
These will never be able to do arbitrary non-PeeCee disk formats, though.
-Dave
On 12/8/20 1:57 PM, Jason Perkins via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
I have a ~2003 vintage NEC usb floppy drive that can read and write,
but
not format PC 720k disks. Inside it has a normal laptop disk mechanism, with an external USB converter board.
I can look up the model if anyone is interested.
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 8:59 AM Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
IMHO there is no modern solid USB substitute for the 720K disk drive, for both software and hardware reasons. I'd set up a "tweener" PC for this kind of work that has an actual 3.5" drive installed and an OS like Windows 2000. You can also install a 5 1/4" drive.. Bill
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 10:00 AM John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hey folks, two asks -- I'm looking for advice:
Are there any USB or external floppy drive arrangements that are flexible like internal floppy drives for allowing formatting and/or reading of unusual sector sizes or formats?
Ex: 800KB Atari ST floppies and PC DOS disks formatted in unusual sizes
..
Second question is -what is the easiest way to clean the heads on a 3.5" floppy? If I have a bunch of 'suspect' floppies that I want to clean the head between every disk it seems a little painful to disassemble the drive enough to see the heads and clean. Are there any alternatives?
(I'm used to 5.25" drives where there's often enough space in there to wipe without disassembly). Maybe there's a good (modern) source of 3.5" cleaning floppies?
(P.S. I have a K6-3+ PC I can put a fresh OS on so I may be cleaning a legacy 3.5" drive instead of a USB floppy).
Thanks! John
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
participants (8)
-
Bill Degnan -
Dave McGuire -
Dean Notarnicola -
Jameel Akari -
Jason Perkins -
John Heritage -
Sentrytv -
Tony Bogan