Read 5.25 inch floppy diskettes (1.2mb or 360k) in 2020

 Let's say you happen across this old pc dos (Actually any other platform also) diskette from the 80s, and you really want to read it, what should you do ?


If it is a 3.5inch diskette (720kb or 1.44mb) you have luck as there are many 3.5inch to USB on ebay, so just shell several dollars and the data is yours, not so with the larger 5.25 diskettes.


Hopefully, someone will come with a simple 5.25ToUsb solution, till then you can buy one of these 3 options:

  1. DeviceSide card (FC5025)
  2. KryoFlux card
  3. SuperCard Pro Card

The above 3 cards work in a similar way, plug your old floppy drive to it and get the data using their personal software using a USB cable.

I will elaborate:
  • Purchase an old 5.25 floppy drive (might be pricey ~80$)
  • Purchase a floppy controller - this will be used to connect the data from the floppy drive to the card
  • Purchase a power supply cable for the floppy 5.25 drive (Power cord to floppy drive)
So now you have your floppy drive connected to electricity with a data cable connected to the card, the card itself is connected with a USB cable to your modern PC, now just fire up the card's software to copy the data to your computer.

It seems that a comparison is in place comparing the 3 devices.

I suggest this link just for reference

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