Hooking up a 8 inch drive to a 2/3/486

[SunDown79]

What I am looking for is a way to read a bunch of 8 inch floppies I have had for ages.
I dont know in what format they are (for most of them anyway) so I suppose its going to be tricky.

What hardware would I need to accomplish getting the data from the 8 inch to anything else (5.25, 3.5, harddisk etc) ?

Would a catweasel do the trick ?

All tips welcome!

 

[Lorne]

I have an HP Vectra setup to go to/from 8", 5 1/4" & 3 1/2".

First thing you should get is a FDADAP from DBit http://www.dbit.com/fdadap.html

If it's a Shugart 8", you'll also need a separate power supply or a power supply which will provide the requried voltages (24V, 12V & 5V).

Then a floppy controller that will handle 3 drives, and a ribbon cable set up for the two drives and the FDADAP.

To be totally honest, it'd be a lot easier mailing the disks to someone else and having them convert them to 5 1/4" or 3 1/2" for you

 

[SunDown79]

Yup, know about the FDADAP, asked about it on the site.
And yes, ofcourse its easier to just send the discs, but thats no fun

 

[kb2syd]

The FDADAP is nice, but I have several hand made converters here that work quite well. Dave Dunfield's site has a great tutorial on rolling your own. http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/index.htm

Your ability to read them will depend on the type of disks and the format. Some PC floppy controllers do not like FM formatted disks.

Hard sectored disks may also present some problems with the soft sector controller on the PC.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Without knowing the source of your diskettes, don't count on a ready-made solution. 8" formats could be quite varied--GCR (Future Data), MMFM (Intel MDS), that peculiar MFM that RX02s used, etc.

There are some 8" formats that even I haven't cracked yet (early 70's Lanier HS, for example).

If you'd like, you can send me a sample and I'll identify it.