[vcf-midatlantic] USB Floppies that are flexible? Cleaning a 3.5" drive?

[John Heritage]

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 at 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 at 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
> >
>