Questions tagged [floppy]

The floppy disk is an obsolescent magnetic storage medium.

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What is the little twist in this floppy ribbon cable for?

There is a twist of a few lines in this floppy cable. Why? What is the purpose of it?
totymedli's user avatar
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2 votes
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Y-E DATA PC Card Floppy Disk Drive (FlashBuster®/FlashBuster-U) is not working with Ubuntu kernel

Y-E DATA PC Card Floppy Disk Drive (FlashBuster®/FlashBuster-U) is apparently not working with—the latest—Ubuntu kernel. This floppy disk in it is Atari formatted. I just get these buffer IO errors. ...
mjz19910's user avatar
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2 answers
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How to go about accessing old filetypes?

I was recently given a floppy drive with a bunch of files on it from the early 1990s and was instructed to get access all the data. Unfortunately, these filetypes cannot be accessed by modern ...
the_deuce's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
1k views

Install C++ compiler on old MS-DOS computer with floppies

I have an old MS-DOS computer that I am experimenting with. The computer has an AMD 80386 processor, 1664 KB of RAM, a 50 MB hard drive, and two floppy disk drives: one 3 1/2 inches, the other 5 1/4 ...
Kyle's user avatar
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0 votes
1 answer
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Convert floppy image from 1,44 mb to 720 k

The other day I found an old floppy from the 80's. I inserted it in my USB floppy drive and I got a message from Microsoft security essentials that the disk was infected by a boot virus. I supposed ...
Magnetic_dud's user avatar
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2 votes
3 answers
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Installing Ye Olde DOOM on DOS with Ye Olde Floppy Discs

I'm trying to install DOOM (the shareware version) on my old Compaq running Windows 3.11. I've got the files deice.exe dooms_19.1 dooms_19.2 dooms_19.dat install.bat all downloaded and I have a USB ...
nerdenator's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
417 views

Why can't computer detect the lack of floppy drive?

I have a question that I had been wondering about ever since my first OS freeze due to an attempt to read a floppy from a drive that doesn't exist. Why do operating systems even try that? Isn't it ...
d33tah's user avatar
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-1 votes
1 answer
561 views

Floppy Drive Connector to CF Card Reader with USB Port

I bought an old floppy drive from a local market and just realized that my board isn't compatible. And I'm wondering, will it work if I connect my floppy drive to a cf card reader which has same ...
duuuk's user avatar
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4 votes
4 answers
16k views

How to copy a floppy boot disk?

I have a floppy boot disk and I would like to copy it to preserve it, as a backup. If I have two floppy drives, A and B, how can I copy the disk? Assuming one has two floppy drives Can I simply ...
Samir's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
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Why is Google Chrome trying to access my FDD?

Every time I start Google Chrome it tries to access my floppy disk drive (FDD). I know that because I can hear it scanning for a floppy disk. So if I close Chrome and then start it again I can hear ...
Samir's user avatar
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2 votes
2 answers
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DD: No Space Left On Device

I've been messing with an old Brother WP-2200 and I've hit a bit of a snag. I was hoping I would be able to make images out of the floppies I typed on it using dd under Linux. Unfortunately that ...
Petrusd987's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
2k views

Every time I start Google Chrome, my floppy disk accesses

When I start google chrome (not any other application) my "A" drive/floppy access light comes on and it makes a sound like it's trying to read a disk. It's perplexing, and I'd like to figure out why ...
pennstatephil's user avatar
2 votes
4 answers
2k views

5.25 Floppy Disk Formatting

I'm having this debate with a friend who is looking for a box of single-sided, single-density 5.25 floppy disks on eBay for one of his old computers. I told him he could buy any 5.25 floppy disks he ...
dvanaria's user avatar
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2 votes
2 answers
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Floppy Drive 34 pin Cable 'Missing Pin' is in a different position to the missing pin on Motherboard - Can't Connect

I'm trying to connect a floppy drive from an old computer into a newer (but still 'old') computer. I've come across a problem in that the 34 pin cable I have has 1 pin missing which is second pin ...
John_at_Overflow's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
799 views

Swap 1.2MB Floppy Drive with 360KB Drive in Older PC

I have an old PC with a 5.25 1.2MB floppy drive that is running DOS/Win98. I also have some 360KB floppy drives pulled from an old Kaypro 1 that I would like to put into this machine, but I'm not sure ...
dvanaria's user avatar
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1 vote
0 answers
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Skip Searching For Floppy (Drive A: ) When Restoring Norton Ghost Image?

I am trying to restore a Norton Ghost image of Windows XP, but at some point, it searches for every drive (A,B,C,D,..). I don't have a floppy(A:) in my PC anymore, but on the screen is a command ...
vladCovaliov's user avatar
11 votes
4 answers
2k views

How to backup old Mac (System 7) floppies?

I have two 720 KB Mac (System 7) 3.5" floppies from high school. Since floppies demagnetize themselves with time I would like to "clone" them to another medium before it's too late. These were my ...
AlexV's user avatar
  • 780
0 votes
3 answers
283 views

Floppies backup on non-floppies

I have some old games and softwares on 3.5" floppies that are worth archiving. Since floppies demagnetize themselves with time I would like to "clone" them to another medium before it's too late. ...
AlexV's user avatar
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8 votes
2 answers
32k views

Mount floppy disk image (*.img) as virtual floppy drive

Title says it all. I am looking for some software that will allow me to mount a floppy disk image (*.img) as a virtual floppy drive...similar I suppose to mounting an ISO image to a virtual optical ...
Matthew Layton's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
408 views

USB Floppy drive for a 3.5" regular FDD bay

I am going to be ripping out my old fan controller, and putting in a larger one in a lower bay; since I've lost the faceplate for the 3.5" FDD bay it is currently occupying, I'd like to play a USB ...
user978122's user avatar
18 votes
3 answers
37k views

How do I connect a 5 1/4" floppy drive to a modern PC?

This question was originally posted on Gaming Stack Exchange. I have a small collection of 5 1/4" floppy disks (early Sierra games) that I am trying to read. How can I connect a drive that accepts ...
Jason Sperske's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
2k views

Any way to read / write a floppy disk in a modern computer?

I recently bought a new computer. The motherboard only has SATA connections, no PATA or Floppy. I also have a (piano-style) keyboard that allows reading and writing of midi files from a 3.5" floppy ...
Darth Egregious's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
7k views

Read (repair) data from broken floppy disc on a linux system

How can I read an old floppy disk under Linux that has some problematic sectors? In times of DOS people used magic tools like Norton Disk Doctor and others. Some of these tools read the broken part ...
Jonas Stein's user avatar
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2 votes
2 answers
21k views

Windows Convert Folder to Floppy IMG?

I have a folder on my computer whose contents contain a program that originated from a floppy. The Windows computer I am currently running does not have a floppy drive. Is there a program which can ...
Oliver Spryn's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
5k views

What is the exact meaning of an “IBM formatted” floppy disk?

I have often come across floppy disks in the past that were marketed as “IBM Formatted Floppy.” What exactly is the meaning of “IBM formatted” and what is the significance of it? And if I format ...
tumchaaditya's user avatar
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0 votes
2 answers
646 views

A non-diskette MS-DOS boot disk

I want to format a device to be an MS-DOS boot disk but I dont have a floppy disk drive. Unless you show me one on ebay thats 5 dollars or less I cant buy it. I wanted to know If I could format ...
dsgdfgdsfg's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
266 views

P5VD2VM 5,25" floppy drive

I have an Asus P5VD2VM mobo. I have a 3,5" floppy drive connected at A:. How do I connect a 5,25" floppy drive at B:? The system BIOS does not seem to contain that option.
kinokijuf's user avatar
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10 votes
2 answers
1k views

Somebody knows why the sectors of the IBM floppy disk are named 1 to 8 (and not 0 to 7 ) [closed]

I am now programming on a 8 bits Z80 computer with CP/M 2.2, (as a hobby) and the floppy disk format is IBM, 40 tracks, 8 sectors per track, 512 bytes per sector. free space is 154 Ko on each face of ...
Olivier Briand's user avatar
5 votes
5 answers
932 views

Old Technologies About Floppy

I have a floppy disk with an unknown FS-(FileSystem). I want to make a copy from it but I can't because both Windows and Linux seem to be unable to read from it. I tried many of the most popular apps ...
repozitor's user avatar
6 votes
4 answers
9k views

How to tell double-density vs. high-density in 5.25" floppies?

I recently found a box of old 5.25" floppies. Is there a way to tell the double-density (360K) 5.25" ones from the high-density (1.2M) ones when the disks do not have any markings? It looks like the ...
kinokijuf's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
4k views

Can a magnet be used to fix an “unformattable” floppy disk?

Sometimes a floppy disk (or other magnetic media like it) won’t read or write properly. Specifically, a format won’t work an gives various errors such as Unable to write track 0 or opening the disk in ...
Synetech's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
1k views

Getting position of track and sector in 'dd'-created floppy image

I got some floppy images (original DOS 6.22 und FreeDOS 1.44 MB boot disks) created using the *nix ddcommand that work fine when used in a virtual environment. Now I want to understand the structure ...
muffel's user avatar
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5 votes
2 answers
7k views

Floppy drive doesn’t work in Windows, but does outside of Windows

Problem My (internal) floppy drive does not work in Windows (neither XP nor 7). That is, when trying to access the A: drive, nothing occurs, no light, no motor, nothing. It does however work in DOS, ...
Synetech's user avatar
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0 votes
1 answer
272 views

floppy disk controller mobo no connector RAID XP

I want to install a floppy disk drive, but my new ASUS P8Z68-V LX mobo does not have the floppy drive connection pins on it. What can I do? Is there an adapter? Or does a USB-floppy work at XP boot-...
raiduser's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
1k views

Create floppy disk image with FreeBSD

So I don't have a usb floppy drive for my laptop, but oddly enough, I find myself wishing I did now. I do have an old machine with a floppy drive running FreeBSD 8.2, so I thought I might just use it ...
Dr. Watson's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
246 views

Multiple /dev entries for the floppy drive, can not write to drive

I have an old computer that I am trying to use to write to a floppy. It is running Ubuntu 10.10 and is a Dell. Every time I try to mount the floppy drive, it fails (probably because I don't know the ...
Linuxios's user avatar
  • 353
0 votes
4 answers
198 views

Install Linux on this Computer

I have an old desktop computer which I am trying to install Linux to. It looks Dell-ish to me. So far I have tried Linux LiveDVD (I have no LiveCDs) and the computer only has a CD drive. The BIOS is ...
Linuxios's user avatar
  • 353
2 votes
2 answers
9k views

How to create bootable floppy disk images (.img)

I am thinking of creating my own OS. I downloaded bochs for a test machine, and now I need a 'floppy' to boot from (it boots from .img files). I need a way to create bootable disk images. I have ...
Kendall Frey's user avatar
8 votes
5 answers
6k views

Reading old 5.25" floppies

Summary: Having problems reading some old 5.25" floppies. Looking for advice on what else I can try before declaring the disks un-retrievable and giving-up. Details: I recently found a box of old 5....
Andy Johnson's user avatar
1 vote
3 answers
4k views

How to image a floppy on Win98/Dos for Virtualbox?

I need to make an image of a floppy disk containing DOS drivers to use in VirtualBox. Is there to do it in the Windows 98 command line environment?
Brandon Lebedev's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
5k views

Can I use Windows to write Mac floppy disk format?

For fun, I'm trying to use an Apple PowerBook 5300c (Mac OS 7.5.2) to do some programming. I've found the software I want to use (thanks to some answers on SO) but I'm unfamiliar with these formats (I'...
Nick Bolton's user avatar
  • 3,400
2 votes
2 answers
601 views

Floppy Drive clicking problem

After installing drivers for samsung phone ("Kies" from samsung vebsite), the floppy drive started to clicking when windows is on. This is not my computer. So what can be the problem?
Little Helper's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
1k views

How can I recover files from a Mac floppy?

My mother has those 3 Monotype floppy disks for Mac with fonts on them that she would like to recover. However, the only Mac we still have that has a floppy drive is a Macintosh SE, and while it works ...
zneak's user avatar
  • 1,059
3 votes
3 answers
3k views

How to make a floppy image and overwrite the MBR

I am trying to make a floppy image with a working file system so that I can test a 2 stage boot loader. When I attempt to mount the floppy and then cp the second binary over to it, mount gets all ...
Chris's user avatar
  • 238
4 votes
1 answer
2k views

Service for retrieving data from old Macintosh floppies

I have a bunch of old Mac floppies, from whatever System was common in 1995. I've been wanting to get this data off of these floppies for some time but feet dragging has led to the current state ...
dash-tom-bang's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
1k views

What to do with old floppy drives? [closed]

I have found a floppy drive lying around. However, as all my computers are connected to the net, I won't be needing it. What would be your recommendations for it, especially if I bump into situations ...
stanigator's user avatar
  • 1,479
3 votes
4 answers
7k views

How to start DOS on a PC with just HDD (no FDD/CD/USB drives)

Would making a first partition (which FAT?) of 1,44 MB with a bootable image of DOS start the system on a laptop's HDD? or in other words Can one start a laptop without FDD/CD/USB with just ...
user avatar
18 votes
7 answers
6k views

Formatting a 5.25" floppy disk

So after the massive trouble of finding a 5.25" floppy drive and a connecting it up, then changing the BIOS so it's set as my A: drive, I tried to format a couple of high-density 1.2MB floppy disks ...
Sputnik's user avatar
  • 399
1 vote
1 answer
1k views

Combining several boot floppy disks into one HD floppy

I have a bit of an obsession with old operating systems, and while teaching myself to use UNIX and about operating systems I came across Minix 1.1. I want to install this on an old Dell setup, and ...
Sputnik's user avatar
  • 399
0 votes
1 answer
125 views

Getting a Macintosh Plus up and running...?

I found an old Mac Plus, and when I turned it on, it had a flashing image of a floppy drive on the screen. Does that mean I have to have a OS floppy? Or can it only be run using an empty one?
JShoe's user avatar
  • 1,392