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Which of these 5.25 floppy drives will work on a modern PC?

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'Georgy Papantoniou'

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Nov 25, 2012
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Nicosia, Cyprus, Cyprus
There are 4 types of 5.25 floppy drives that I found on ebay

Slim 5.25 Floppy Drive: It seems really great on the outside,since it is a really rare drive used on laptops. It has a regular IDE floppy connector that modern 3.5" drives use. Shipping it's not very high due to it's small size

Combo Drive This drive has also a IDE connector. It has both 3.5 and 5.25 drives

Common 5.25 Floppy Drive This is the most typical type of 5.25 floppy drives. Can you tell me if it is possible to connect this to a IDE port in the motherboard? I see no IDE connector on the back side. Do you recognize what kind of connector it has?

Full Height Floppy Drive A really old, rare nowadays drive. I am almost sure it will not work on a modern system. Do you know what kind of connector it uses?


Which of the 4 drive types do you suggest me to buy?
 
All of them are just standard floppy drives in different sizes and capacities. The top 3 are high density, the bottom one is a double denisty from an IBM PC or PC-XT. The combo doesn't have an IDE connector, it's a standard 34 pin floppy connector like all the others.

For common sense reasons (so it looks nice and fits in a normal case) I'd suggest the Panasonic JU-475 - I have a lot of these and have found them very reliable.

If it works for you or not will be dependant on if your PC has a floppy controller, your BIOS supports the 1.2MB type, and your OS supports 5.25" disks. I usually use an original Pentium with Windows 98SE for this task.
 
FWIW, none of them has an IDE connector.

Also, the first one (slim) is the only one that is guaranteed to work so the others might just be dead and a bad investment.
 
Those 'slim' 1-inch-high 5.25" 1.2MB floppy drives were used by Compaq, Leading Edge, and other manufacturers in the early to mid '90s. They were used in desktops and towers, not 'laptops', although there were some 'luggable' portables from Compaq and others which used 1-inch-high (or even thinner) 5.25" floppy drives, usually which had the entire faceplate of the drive open up as a flap.
 
vwestlife said:
Those 'slim' 1-inch-high 5.25" 1.2MB floppy drives were used by Compaq, Leading Edge, and other manufacturers in the early to mid '90s. They were used in desktops and towers, not 'laptops', although there were some 'luggable' portables from Compaq and others which used 1-inch-high (or even thinner) 5.25" floppy drives, usually which had the entire faceplate of the drive open up as a flap.
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I beieve the Sharp PC2000 luggable used one. Teac also had the FD155. Generally, I'd steer clear of the 1/3 height drives. Like Dr. Johnson's dog walking on its hind legs--remarkable in that it can be done, but don't expect nuch. Which is also why I don't care for the "combo" drives, either. A Teac FD55B is about the height of the technology at the time that 5.25" was in vogue.
 
I made an offer on the slim floppy drive but I don't think it will be accepted.

I plan on making an offer on this TOSHIBA 5.25 FDD since the shipping cost is only 10$ to cyprus, and it is an unusual type of FDD. Do you think it will be compatible and functional? Also can you tell me the type of connection these drives use (is it IDE? SCSI?)
 
'Georgy Papantoniou' said:
I plan on making an offer on this TOSHIBA 5.25 FDD since the shipping cost is only 10$ to cyprus, and it is an unusual type of FDD. Do you think it will be compatible and functional? Also can you tell me the type of connection these drives use (is it IDE? SCSI?)
Click to expand...
It's MFM... like all standard floppy drives. And you need a cable that has a card edge connector to fit it.
 
It's also Untested and not worth the gamble at that price, have you asked in the "wanted" section on here ? maybe someone here has a working spare and willing to sell, also make sure that the computer you intend on putting this floppy into actually supports 5.25" floppy drives.


'Georgy Papantoniou' said:
I made an offer on the slim floppy drive but I don't think it will be accepted.

I plan on making an offer on this TOSHIBA 5.25 FDD since the shipping cost is only 10$ to cyprus, and it is an unusual type of FDD. Do you think it will be compatible and functional? Also can you tell me the type of connection these drives use (is it IDE? SCSI?)
Click to expand...
 
Malc said:
It's also Untested and not worth the gamble at that price, have you asked in the "wanted" section on here ? maybe someone here has a working spare and willing to sell, also make sure that the computer you intend on putting this floppy into actually supports 5.25" floppy drives.
Click to expand...

I agree.52$ is a lot of money for an untested drive.Another thing is what you need:do you need a 360K or a 1.2Mb drive?Can your computer support the 360k drive?
 
Sellers that sell products with low demand like old 5.25 floppy drives usually put a high price for their product (42$), and allow for a best offer! I am quite positive that if I make a 20$ offer it will be accepted, because if not the drive will probably stay in the sellers warehouse for a long time!

The seller also promises to ship along with the drive the proper floppy connector for the drive.

The seller claims that about a decade ago when the drive was last tested it was perfecty working. What is the chance that the drive will malfunction 10 years after?
 
Since the spindle is direct-drive and not belt-drive, your chances are pretty good. Perhaps a good cleaning and maybe some lubrication is all that the drive needs.
 
Stone said:
I've had drives die sitting on the shelf for ten years. Not all of them, just a few.
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Hard disks, yes, but in my experience unless they're physically damaged (i.e. heads ripped off, etc.) floppies usually just need cleaning and lubing, if anything, although the old Tandons, Micropolis etc. were a little flakier than more modern drives.
 
Stone said:
I've had drives die sitting on the shelf for ten years. Not all of them, just a few.
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Heck, I've got a carton of new FD-505s that's been sitting for more than 10 years. I've got Micropolis floppies that have been sitting on the shelf for more than 20. All the ones that I've pulled out still work. Just watch out for those belts.
 
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