Transfer from 5 1/4 floppy disk to CD

watto23 said :

Shercom said :

The disks came with a label – see above image – so if one wrote on it at the time then one would know what’s on the disks later.

I’d offer to help, but found 5 1/4″ disks these days are usually unreadable due to the time they were last used.

I used to do this as a sideline. I found that letting the drive seek all over the disk for a readable track was best. This eventually scraped all the diskgrot off the surface of the disk, that could then (usually) be (more-or-less) successfully read, after you’d cleaned the disk drive’s heads with isopropyl, which required a take-apart. A time consuming messy process, to be sure.

A bit more useful info from the OP would help. If s/he’s just trying to recreate an old game or system disk, then there are several archives on the internet that contain disk images to do just that. They still haven’t said what it is they want to recover.

Shercom said :

The disks came with a label – see above image – so if one wrote on it at the time then one would know what’s on the disks later.

I’d offer to help, but found 5 1/4″ disks these days are usually unreadable due to the time they were last used. So i got rid of my last 5 1/4″ drive a few years back, same for my 3 1/2″ drive (i have a USB 3 1/2″ drive somewhere, but not sure if they ever made 5 1/4″ USB drives) and my zip drive.
I still have a video player for converting videos to digital!

Did you find anyone who could. I’m sure any of the archival type places or people who say they convert film etc might have the tech, or know someone who does. I suspect it will cost, just for the hassle of them doing it ;_)

The disks came with a label – see above image – so if one wrote on it at the time then one would know what’s on the disks later.

Shercom said :

Sorry, should have checked back earlier. Thanks for all the help. To answer the questions, there are three, and I think they are IBM, not Apple.

If you don’t know what format they are, or what make/model of computer wrote to them, how do you know what they contain? Doesn’t knowing what they contain tell you what computer put it on there?

How much money are you prepared to spend to have the data recovered?

Since no one asked…

WHAT’S ON IT???

Why is it of such value that you’d be going out of your way to recover the data off it?
And only 700Kb?
OP?

Sorry, should have checked back earlier. Thanks for all the help. To answer the questions, there are three, and I think they are IBM, not Apple. Don’t know whether you can tell from this:
* Scotch 3M 744-10 diskette, Single head, single side, 10 sectors, single density
* Micro-Educational, Single sided Double Density Soft Sector
* Xidex Precision Flexible Disks, 5012-1000, Single Sided, Double Density, Soft Sector, 40 tracks
I’m not very IT savvy so I’ll go for a service, even if outside Canberra. Searching online tomorrow.

In the absence of a response as to how many and what sort; I’d suggest searching for “data recovery canberra” and start calling around to see if any of them still deal with floppy disks. Kroll Ontrack claim that they can read pretty much everything (but they are based in Brisbane).

The other issue would be assuming the data is still readable on those floppies. They were not renowned for being archive quality storage devices.

Can’t help you with companies in Canberra that do it, but suggest you start phoning actual PC stores (not Harvey Norman / DSE) and see if they can suggest anyone – or even have a 386 lying around that they can use to do it for you.. assuming it’s “IBM” formatted floppies you have there.

You might be able to find switch’s old PC or similar at a computer recyclers. Buy it, copy floppies to HDD, move HDD to your current PC.

Or, buy a USB FDD controller like this: http://www.deviceside.com/ and then get yourself a drive, from PC recyclers or ebay or whatever. The nifty part about that USB adapter is that it supports more than just IBM format disks.

I just de-commissioned my last 5.25″ floppy reading computer on the weekend…