Reader Kristie wrote in with this puzzler: 'I just found a shoebox full of 3.5-inch disks. I think they were from my old digital camera, but I have no way of finding out because I no longer have a computer (or camera) that can read them. What can I do?' Talk about a trip down memory lane! I haven't so much as laid eyes on a 3.5-inch 'floppy' in years, and I'd forgotten that a few early digital cameras did indeed storage images on that kind of media. Needless to say, however, modern PCs don't have floppy drives. (Same goes for not-so-modern ones.) So how can you hope to extract your photos, WordPerfect documents, and any other old data that might be lingering on those disks?

You could try to borrow an old PC that has a disk drive, but then you're faced with the problem of transferring the data to your own PC. Depending on how old that borrowed machine is, it might not have a USB port. No, a better bet is simply to spend a few bucks. I did a little shopping on Ebay and found plenty of 3.5-inch external floppy disk drives, most of them selling in the $10-15 range. If you'd rather not go the auction route, Newegg also sells. (Just be sure to check the user reviews for some tips on using it.) I think that's a fairly small price to pay for the simplicity of accessing your old disks on your modern PC.

To install this program, you run the installation program from the install CD. When running Mitchell OnDemand5 for the first time after that installation completes, you will be prompted to insert the key floppy disk, as well as the data DVDROM disks in order to configure the paths for the software. After this initial configuration of.

Just plug the drive into a USB port and you should be good to go. (If you've had any experience using such a drive with a newer PC, share it in the comments.) By the way, in a few years I expect to be fielding the same question about CDs, so get your data off those babies now. There's a decent chance your next PC won't have an optical drive, especially if it's a laptop. Contributing Editor writes about business and consumer technology. Ask for help with your PC hassles at, or try the treasure trove of helpful folks in the. Sign up to have the e-mailed to you each week.

Hi all, This topic comes and bites me in the bum periodically. What I'd like is to have some way of transferring the data currently on various bootable floppies to a USB stick so I can still boot these programs in an XP SP3 machine without a floppy drive. I've tried to inform myself on the web.

Some give this advice, some give that advice - it's difficult to know how to find my way through this forest. I don't want to burn a disk image of each floppy I have to a CD/DVD, so what possibilities are there of using a USB stick to boot the various programs and what would I have to reconfigure to get it to work?

Thank you very much for your help! I haven’t been able to figure out yet how you could transfer bootable programs on floppy disks onto a bootable USB flash drive without an imaging program/procedure Since you say you don’t want to burn a disk image of each floppy to a CD that tells me you still have the PC on which you can use those floppy disks so would you consider the following ideas? --- Remove the floppy drive from that computer and install it into the XP SP3 computer or connect it externally --- Or buy an external floppy drive to connect to the XP SP3 computer --- That way you can at least use those floppy disks with their programs & data as you have been providing they are compatible with XP Then see what it would take to transfer the programs & data to a bootable USB flash drive from there --- However, without an imaging program/procedure I do not see how that can be accomplished --- What are the programs and how many are there? --- Maybe there are modern versions of those programs you can install on the XP SP3 PC or even onto a flash drive --- It might cost to get the modern version but that’s the trade-off you would need to consider. Hi all, This topic comes and bites me in the bum periodically. What I'd like is to have some way of transferring the data currently on various bootable floppies to a USB stick so I can still boot these programs in an XP SP3 machine without a floppy drive. I've tried to inform myself on the web.

Some give this advice, some give that advice - it's difficult to know how to find my way through this forest. I don't want to burn a disk image of each floppy I have to a CD/DVD, so what possibilities are there of using a USB stick to boot the various programs and what would I have to reconfigure to get it to work? Thank you very much for your help!I've been doing what you ask, for several years now. It IS a multi-step process but it's not really difficult. Of course you need a PC with a floppy drive to read the original floppy disks.

Next you need a little utility from HP that allows you to format a Flash Drive, utilizing the 3 boot files from the floppy. First, download and install the Utility. Then once you format the Flash drive, using the boot files from the Floppy, copy the rest of the files from the Floppy Disk to the Flash Drive. The nice thing is, you can add and remove programs and files from the Flash Drive just like you would the floppy disk, only most Flash Drives are much larger. I have several Flash Drives set up with programs that I used to use from a Floppy Disk. If you need more details, drop me a PM.

The Doctor PS: If you have a CD burning program like 'Nero', you can create a bootable CD from a Bootable Flash Drive. I've done that too, because many PC's can't be booted up from a Flash Drive. When installing XP, the F6 option wants input from a floppy.To install Drivers etc. Could this 'Tweak' ( flash drive ) be used to simulate a 'Floppy'?No, it won't. The utility Doc linked to is merely one of several ways to make a flash drive bootable, but that's it's only focus. It doesn't make a flash drive appear to be a floppy.

The F6 option in XP-Setup looks only for a floppy in drive A: (and possibly drive B:, though I haven't tested that). A flash drive, bootable or not, typically shows up as a hard drive--i.e., drive C: or higher. F6 doesn't look there. Also note the F6 option doesn't care whether the medium is bootable. It doesn't need to be bootable, it just needs to hold the SATA driver files so they can be retrieved when F6 goes looking for them.

You can copy the driver files to a flash drive but unless that flash drive shows up as A: or B: then F6 won't find them. No, it won't. The F6 option in XP-Setup looks only for a floppy in drive A: (and possibly drive B:, though I haven't tested that). A flash drive, bootable or not, typically shows up as a hard drive--i.e., drive C: or higher. F6 doesn't look there. Also note the F6 option doesn't care whether the medium is bootable. It doesn't need to be bootable, it just needs to hold the SATA driver files so they can be retrieved when F6 goes looking for them. Download Anime Tonagura Episode 12 Sub Indo.

You can copy the driver files to a flash drive but unless that flash drive shows up as A: or B: then F6 won't find them.dg, Hello. Thanks for the clarification. If you were to place 'SATA Drivers' on a flash drive and label it 'A:'. ( also format the flash drive FAT32) would that work? Regards Fred. I would save the boot floppies as ISO images, as a backup, then you can create bootable USB devices or CDs as required.

Tools Required (free, of course) - create floppy images, save ISOs, burn bootable CDs. - create bootable USB devices from ISO images, or direct. Create ISO 1. Run CDBurnerXP and select Data disc. Select Disc >Boot options.

Tick Make Disk Bootable. Click Create floppy image >Create image. When the image is ready select File >Save compilation as ISO file. Backup your newly created ISOs. Create USB 1. Select the ISO Image drop down and choose the ISO you require.

Click Start to create the USB. Cheers, Paul. Going all the way back, to the premise of this thread,,,, for a long time, when new computers started coming out without floppy drives, I carried a New USB Floppy Disk Drive with me on every service call. I sold a pot full of those little drives to people who had just bought a new PC, that came with NO floppy drive installed. It seemed like everyone had some old floppies with family pictures or some data that they still wanted to be able to access. Flash Drives are a lot like floppy disks, but hold hundreds of times more data, so transferring floppies to flash drives is a good way to preserve old data. Floppies DO Forget, after a period of time and some brands forget even faster than others.

I have a program, that makes a self restoring image file from a floppy disk. Back in the day, I've emailed those images to people all over the world. All they had to do was run the image (an.exe) file and it would rebuild the original floppy to a new disk. That was Great, for sharing files over a long distance. My main PC, my backup PC and my backup to my backup all have Floppy Disk Drives in them. I use floppies often. Cheers Mates!

Dr.Who: Thanks so much for your superb help with my OP. I've been having fun using WinImage to extract data from my floppy library, compressing them and converting them to self-extract.

One question: with all the floppies I've copied for eventual transfer to a USB stick, there are a lot of what look like duplicate files, i.e. Autoexec.bat, command.com etc. I imagine some of that data relates only to the floppy from which it came. Would I not be better to create a folder on the USB stick for each floppy and then type in the path to folder plus exe at boot time, rather than keep all the data from all the floppies mixed up in the root of the USB? How does all that hang together?