Need to access text from 5.25 pc floppy

[runzwithsizorz]

:\ Floppies from 1982. There is text I would like to access from these PC floppy disks (double density, double sided). I saw some "vintage" 5.25 floppy drives on ebay.
1. Will they work with win 7 64 set up?
2. Another problem is the text was written using Wordstar, not MS Word.
I think there are programs to "translate" Wordstar into MS Word? Or not?

3. Or second option...Are there any companies that can retrieve the text for a fee?

Thanks,

the Wife

 

[Rakehellion]

The problem with connecting a 5.25" floppy will probably be ensuring you have the right hardware. There's a good chance you'll have to buy an adapter to connect the thing to your machine.

If it's just one file you need, you could take the disk to Kinko's or a similar print company. Call ahead to make sure they can accommodate your request.

Or take it to a university computer lab.

 

[Mir96TA]

All you need data cable floppy controller and power. OS support is there

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

The biggest problem is the disc itself. The file you need is most likely corrupted. I had many old floppies in various storage spots over the years from the same period as yours. None of them were readable when I finally got around to attempting to transfer them.

 

[bbhaag]

I'm gonna have to agree with Magnus. Getting the hardware is the easy part. Actually being able to get the data off the disk will be the challenge.
I've had 3.5" disks that were unreadable due to corruption and those were from the late '90's. I can't imagine a floppy from the early '80's being any better.

 

[bryanl]

Don't insert a disk into an old floppy drive without first inspecting it for dust because it's rather easy for a single piece of dust to scratch the magnetic coating and render the disk unreadable. Heads can be cleaned with alcohol and a q-tip. The heads are typically moved by a steel band, which runs with no lubrication and tends to be maintenance-free, but many old drives used either a lead screw positioner or a plastic disk with a spiral guide groove, and too much dust or old hardened grease can cause poor head alignment.

Place black electrical tape over the 1/4" notch on the side of the disk jacket, to prevent the disk from being written over. It is very easy to accidentally overwrite a disk by plugging the controller ribbon cable backwards, and you cannot trust any connector key to prevent this. The tape must be black and opaque because the write-protect sensor is usually an infrared optical device that will not work with any kind of transparent or even translucent tape, as 3M learned when it had to issue a recall for some 5.25" floppy disks.

5.25" drives often have a removable termination resistor pack that must be installed or else the computer will not be able to communicate with the drive. Only one terminator pack must be installed per ribbon the cable, except in the case of some newer (mid 1980s) 5.25" drives with high resistance terminators (usually soldered in place).

Perhaps most 5.25" drives support both 1.2M and 360K formats, and they tend to have many jumper settings. There are settings for the drive number (select for second drive, meaning #1 if the numbering is 0-3, or #2 if it's 1-4), Drive Select signal (either by Select signal or Motor_On signal), RPM (360 or 300 -- doesn't matter for just reading disks), and pin 34, which may be set to indicate Ready status, Disk Changed status, or left unused. Choose DC since Ready causes errors. 360K drives don't use pin 34, but not using it can make DOS fail to detect when a new disk is inserted (read up on the CONFIG.SYS command DRIVPARM and its '/C' parameter, or just hit CTRL-C to tell DOS that the disk has been changed).

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I'm gonna have to agree with Magnus. Getting the hardware is the easy part. Actually being able to get the data off the disk will be the challenge.
I've had 3.5" disks that were unreadable due to corruption and those were from the late '90's. I can't imagine a floppy from the early '80's being any better.

A couple of years ago, I set up my Commodore 64 and pulled out some disks from the mid to late 80s. To my surprise, of the 10 disks I selected at random, only 1 was unreadable. I was shocked but expect the rest to go bad any day now.

 

[runzwithsizorz]

A couple of years ago, I set up my Commodore 64 and pulled out some disks from the mid to late 80s. To my surprise, of the 10 disks I selected at random, only 1 was unreadable. I was shocked but expect the rest to go bad any day now.

I never had a Commodore 64. Will it read any 5.25 floppy or did Commodore have special floppies only for that machine?

Thanks for the replies.

The Wife

 

[Mir96TA]

Place black electrical tape over the 1/4" notch on the side of the disk jacket, to prevent the disk from being written over. It is very easy to accidentally overwrite a disk by plugging the controller ribbon cable backwards, and you cannot trust any connector key to prevent this.
.

Actually no floppy drive function unless that function is been asked.
Floppy drives has a cut in the side off the connector. Floppy data ribbon has plastic notch which makes it is go one way only.
Data Ribbon also have notch on controller side of connector, which allow to go one way. Some time floppy controller does not have that have orientation correction connector. If that is the case floppy drive activity light will lid up and floppy drive become unusable. It will not start erasing.

I never had a Commodore 64. Will it read any 5.25 floppy or did Commodore have special floppies only for that machine?

Thanks for the replies.

The Wife

It did use 5¼ but it was 360K double Sided.
Faster then Cassette.

 

[tweakboy]

Simple solution. Buy a Tandy Computer.. jk jk jk

 

[AViking]

I'm super curious what you need from 1982. If you don't mind sharing.

My experience has been that the floppies go mostly bad and even my old CD's were going bad too often. I transferred all my media onto my hard drives about 6 years ago. Floppies though I moved to my hard drives around 1998. Soft floppies like yours? Definitely no later than 1989. That's why I'm so curious what could possibly be on that disk.

 

[alzan]

I never had a Commodore 64. Will it read any 5.25 floppy or did Commodore have special floppies only for that machine?

Thanks for the replies.

The Wife

To my recollection the drives and floppies were proprietary, floppies were 180KB formatted, drives had proprietary 9 pin? data connections.

There was a software utility for IBM compatible PC's that would allow them to read a Commodore floppy, but it's probably not available.

 

[corkyg]

:\ ...Are there any companies that can retrieve the text for a fee?

You might want to explore this option. The price seems reasonable.

http://retrofloppy.com/

 

[Blue_Max]

I forgot about the corruption angle... I've been carting around treasured floppies for 20 years which may be unreadable useless garbage!

Time to fire up a retro PC and try it... (Still hoping to find a vintage Tandy 1000TL or similar!)

 

[runzwithsizorz]

There was a software utility for IBM compatible PC's that would allow them to read a Commodore floppy, b

Actually they were IBM formatted floppies, Dual sided.

 

[Mir96TA]

I forgot about the corruption angle... I've been carting around treasured floppies for 20 years which may be unreadable useless garbage!

Time to fire up a retro PC and try it... (Still hoping to find a vintage Tandy 1000TL or similar!)

I am sure you can get hold Norton Disk 5.0 you may able to read lots of or even repair logical errors.

 

[bryanl]

Place black electrical tape over the 1/4" notch on the side of the disk jacket, to prevent the disk from being written over. It is very easy to accidentally overwrite a disk by plugging the controller ribbon cable backwards, and you cannot trust any connector key to prevent this.

Actually no floppy drive function unless that function is been asked.
Floppy drives has a cut in the side off the connector. Floppy data ribbon has plastic notch which makes it is go one way only.

Data Ribbon also have notch on controller side of connector, which allow to go one way. Some time floppy controller does not have that have orientation correction connector. If that is the case floppy drive activity light will lid up and floppy drive become unusable. It will not start erasing.

The floppy disk interface is not like IDE or USB, where command words are sent, but instead control lines are merely pulled low to select the drive, turn on the motor, move the heads, or write data. The 34-pin connector has signals on one side (even wires) and grounds on the other side (odd wires), so turning the connector around will ground the signals that select the drive and write data, meaning the drive will try to erase the disk. The notch in the edge connector and key in the ribbon connector should make this impossible, but in practice many ribbon connectors are not keyed. The drive light will constantly glow when the connector is backward, but that hasn't stopped many people (mostly in management) from inserting a disk anyway. Black tape over the write-protect notch will prevent this accident.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I never had a Commodore 64. Will it read any 5.25 floppy or did Commodore have special floppies only for that machine?

Thanks for the replies.

The Wife

The C64 used standard 5.25" single sided, double density floppies and formatted to 170k. You could buy a disk notcher to cut a second r/w notch in the side of the disk, meaning you could flip it and use the second side.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

To my recollection the drives and floppies were proprietary, floppies were 180KB formatted, drives had proprietary 9 pin? data connections.

There was a software utility for IBM compatible PC's that would allow them to read a Commodore floppy, but it's probably not available.

The drives were proprietary but the floppy disks were standard. You could use any standard 5.25" floppy.

 

[Lorne]

C64 can read dbl sided disk 5.25 with a 1571 floppy drive, 1540/1541 singlesided (dbl notched and flop over).
1581 dbl sided 3.5.

For fat formatted disk you may have to look for a MB that has the floppy ribbon connector if your current one does not.
Then pick up a 5.25 floppy drive from online, Make sure its dbl sided or you will not be able to retrieve data from the second side if it was org formated dbl sided.

 

[Mir96TA]

The floppy disk interface is not like IDE or USB, where command words are sent, but instead control lines are merely pulled low to select the drive, turn on the motor, move the heads, or write data. The 34-pin connector has signals on one side (even wires) and grounds on the other side (odd wires), so turning the connector around will ground the signals that select the drive and write data, meaning the drive will try to erase the disk. The notch in the edge connector and key in the ribbon connector should make this impossible, but in practice many ribbon connectors are not keyed. The drive light will constantly glow when the connector is backward, but that hasn't stopped many people (mostly in management) from inserting a disk anyway. Black tape over the write-protect notch will prevent this accident.

Actually once ribbon is connected backward drive is not usable. OS cannot even do seek or goto track Zero read sector per track to write.
In order to write it has to do read the track Zero, where disk has sector per disk information; then it can write.
All the 5¼ drives and Data Cable I have seen they all have notch. Only matter is on controller end where its common it may not have plastic sounding shroud cover for the pins (Very unlikely).
5¼ have a better data chances off keeping the data then 3½ cause 3½ have very high density and chances for track go bad quiet often.
I have used floppy regular basses unltil last few years where they start shipping out raid controller drivers built in and have a USB support natively!

 

[bryanl]

Actually once ribbon is connected backward drive is not usable. OS cannot even do seek or goto track Zero read sector per track to write.
In order to write it has to do read the track Zero, where disk has sector per disk information; then it can write.
All the 5¼ drives and Data Cable I have seen they all have notch. Only matter is on controller end where its common it may not have plastic sounding shroud cover for the pins (Very unlikely).
5¼ have a better data chances of keeping the data then 3½ cause 3½ have very high density and chances for track go bad quiet often.

Here are connectors from two floppy drive cables, one with no key on the edge connector, another with no key for the pin connector:

In order to write to the floppy disk, the drive only has to be selected and its Write gate enabled, and I have seen people accidentally erase disks when the drive cable was plugged in backward. Some 5¼ drives automatically move the heads out when a disk is removed or inserted, putting them in the worst location if the cable was backward, track 0.

People can usually align the heads of 5¼ without an oscilloscope or alignment disk, but rarely can they do that for a 3½.