How to read 5-1/4" floppies?

[Axtman]

Try not to laugh. I have a friend who has about half a shoebox of 5-1/4" floppy disks. He would like to find out what is on them so he can either transfer the data or trash them.

Any ideas would be welcome.

[nosaj]

Well your going to need an old pc with a 5 1/4 drive.
If they were 3 1/2 you could get a usb drive to do it.
nosaj

[Axtman]

Yes I looked around and all I could only find a 3.5" floppy to USB drive.

[DrGonz78]

These things are worth money. I should have saved a few of them. Lowest price I found $50 untested and $150 or more. The connection looks like PATA and typical computer accessory power supply. You might need a PATA to usb or something similar to get it talking.

[DrGonz78]

Yeah this has it all.

[mozz]

I would just post to a computer for sale list on craigslist or a facebook marketplace and ask if anybody local does that? I'm sure there's people whom still fire up those old towers. I have a Gateway here, about 2ft tall, hasn't been turned on in over 20 years.

[DrGonz78]

Oh yeah it had that card edge socket stuff. I will keep an eye out for a modern nerdy solution.

[The Dude]

My theory is this: If you have old floppy discs that you haven't needed or thought about for over a decade, what possible useful data could they contain? That, plus they only held 360kB - 1.2mB of data, so if there are pictures, they are going to be horrible resolution. Personally, I'd run them through a shredder for safety and be done with them.

[g1]

I think the easiest might be to find an actual old computer with a 5-1/4" drive. Running Windows 3.1 or something.
Hopefully you won't have to learn DOS to read the disc.
I keep old computers solely to run obsolete media (for my Dad, just in case). I think the machine with that size drive is an old Tandy. Have another for 3.5's and another for CD/DVD.

[eschertron]

I had some 5 1/4" floppies saved from the mid 80s-early 90s that I just HAD to read ... TEN YEARS LATER. I knew the disks were formatted from an apple OS, so back around 2003 or so I got a used Apple IIc (not MAC!) from a pawn shop. turns out the disks did not actually have the "valuable files" that I assumed were on the disk. $35 down the drain on a computer that I only used for that exercise. I agree with The Dude, the actual value of the data is likely trivial compared to the imagined value. JM2C

[glebert]

My theory is this: If you have old floppy discs that you haven't needed or thought about for over a decade, what possible useful data could they contain? That, plus they only held 360kB - 1.2mB of data, so if there are pictures, they are going to be horrible resolution. Personally, I'd run them through a shredder for safety and be done with them.

I remember reading about some division of our military that almost lost the complete record of a notable event (Grenada invasion maybe?) because it was on old computer equipment that was being surplused. Sometimes there is useful stuff there, although it is a good argument for labeling your disks properly!

[nosaj]

The German navy is still using 8 in floppy.
nosaj

[mozz]

I did have a real neat color organ software that did kind of fireworks and other neat stuff on 5.25. Also have a full size ISA card that does RTTY and the software was on 5.25. You used to be able to buy a combo drive that used 3.5 & 5.25 discs. I do remember the 8" drives, dumpster dove at a old high school for that one.

[Axtman]

I agree with everyone. If you have not needed to refer back to the floppies in years, what possible hidden treasures could there be? Maybe old Uncle Frank's last will, where he left everything to you? ;-)

[Steve Blackdog]

Back in ‘89, when I worked in an office, files were saved onto 5 ¼ floppies. They were duly archived. I just hope they contained nothing of importance!

I reckon in 1000 years, the last few decades will be the dark ages.