Universal Floppy controller for USB

Solution 1:

It appears that most USB floppies use an integrated controller, and don't expose the floppy cable in any way where it could be misused by perhaps connecting a 5.25" drive. That said, it also appears that there is an active ancient data and media community that is building up controllers and tools to deal with lots of ancient stuff.

One such is http://www.deviceside.com/ which makes a controller and matching PC software that can read (but probably not write) DOS and some CP/M format floppies.

There is also http://www.kryoflux.com/ which is taking a different approach. Their controller brings back the analog track content and can potentially decode nearly anything written to a floppy. No clue about price, but if you have a crate of valuable data written by an Apple ][ (or something even more obscure) there may not be very many other choices.....

A quick skim doesn't turn up any complete solutions. I'll be interested to see what other SU users turn up.

Solution 2:

Sadly, as the others have found out, there does not seem to be a simple, ready-to-buy, plug-and-play external USB 5.25" floppy drive (just not enough demand probably).

As mentioned, there are some controllers that can be purchased. There is also a PCI expansion card that is geared primarily towards Amiga users, but is Windows compatible. It can even write disks, but at £90, it’s pretty pricey. There are some discussions by people on kludging something together at home, potentially at significantly less cost than either option.

There is a discussion thread by some Mac users on how to make one out of an existing 3.5" USB drive. Another extended USENET thread has a similar discussion. Unfortunately neither one really and concretely confirmed success. However, the attempts and discussions provide some useful information for anyone who wants to try their own hands at it. Some points of particular note include

• The need for an adapter to convert from the 5.25" drive’s edge-connector to the pin connector used by 3.5" drives
• The need for an external power supply since USB cannot provide the 12v needed by the 5.25" drive