5 1/4 Floppy Drive XP

[PC tec]

I want to get a internal 5 1/4 floppy drive working with a Windows XP MCE system I have (Just to get data off). I have the drive working, sort-of. It powers on, but XP does not detect it. Is there a generic driver online, or should I try Ubuntu or another Linux system to get it off. The data is not critical, but it would save me a 3 hour drive.

 

[R_1]

IDK if the data is still viable. magnetic media needs to be refreshed regularly or it degrades.
floppy disks are driver free.
are you sure the floppy drive cable is not reversed? that was always an issue as they are not keyed like IDE.

 

[rgd1101]

enable it on bios?

 

[PC tec]

IDK if the data is still viable. magnetic media needs to be refreshed regularly or it degrades.
floppy disks are driver free.
are you sure the floppy drive cable is not reversed? that was always an issue as they are not keyed like IDE.

You do have a point, I'll be better off getting the hard drive my backups are stored on

 

[BFG-9000]

Floppy drive requires BIOS support, unless it's USB. You would actually need to specify in the BIOS double-density (360kB) or high-density (1.2MB) for it to work, and as you'd expect BIOS settings for 5.25 drives would be pretty rare nowadays.

Even worse, 5.25 drives are fragile and must not be moved without the cardboard insert or a floppy inside. As most such drives tend to be jumbled around in a junk box without these until someone decides to try them out, they are usually hopelessly misaligned.

The media tend to be surprisingly readable 30+ years later so long as they haven't been subjected to magnets, or are the very low quality disks prevalent when the format started to go obsolete. Keep in mind they work by direct head contact like cassette tapes so the head needs to be kept clean and demagnetized or it will damage disks.