3.5" 1.44MB external USB floppy drive for Windows 10

[Gusbert]

I've done some searching for an external USB 3.5" 1.44MB floppy drive which will work with Windows 10, but a lot of the matches (Amazon, Ebay, Google Shopping etc.) are very vague on whether they will work with Windows 10. Do you guys have any recommendations?

[edpalmer42]

I didn't realize that there were any issues with floppies and Windows 10.  I use an old IBM floppy from 2002.  Just plug it in and Windows recognizes it.

Now Windows 11 ......... 

[Gusbert]

OK, but when you read the description for modern USB floppy drives, they almost always say "works with Windows 98/ME/XP/VISTA/7/8" and specifically exclude 10, or say 10 in the description but make no mention in the details. Anybody have a newly purchased drive that works with Windows 10?

[Benta]

Completely uncritical. If it works with Win 7 or older, it will work with Win 10.

[edpalmer42]

I just went to Newegg and a few of their floppies explicitly mention Windows 10 support while some don't mention anything newer than Windows 7.  Annoying, but at least a few include Windows 10 so that's a possibility.

[magic]

Completely uncritical. If it works with Win 7 or older, it will work with Win 10.

It should be the case with software in general, but I wouldn't necessarily count on it at all times with Microsoft

That being said, those things probably all use some standard USB protocol so if one of them works then all of them work, unless the working one ships with special drivers.

The first web search result:
https://www.techsupportforum.com/threads/floppy-drive-not-working-in-win-10.1080713

tl;dr: internal or external, it should work, though some early builds had it removed

[Benta]

The first web search result:
https://www.techsupportforum.com/threads/floppy-drive-not-working-in-win-10.1080713

Yeah, and the problem was that the power connector to the drive wasn't plugged in. Duh.

[Benta]

Rummaging through my storage, I found a ~20 years old Toshiba external USB 1.44" FD drive (laptop accessory from back then).
Plugged it into my Win 10 laptop and it worked right away.
Only as read-only, (LO Writer lock file could not be created), but that's probably because the R/O tab on the disk was enabled.

You're overthinking this totally.

[james_s]

OK, but when you read the description for modern USB floppy drives, they almost always say "works with Windows 98/ME/XP/VISTA/7/8" and specifically exclude 10, or say 10 in the description but make no mention in the details. Anybody have a newly purchased drive that works with Windows 10?

Windows 8 was probably the most current version of Windows available when the drive was manufactured. They haven't tested it on Win10 and probably don't make it anymore but that doesn't mean it won't work.

[Whales]

USB floppy drives should be relatively standardised because they will want to provide BIOS floppy support.  I've seen several BIOS mention USB floppy drives in their config.

[tooki]

USB floppy drives present as USB Mass Storage devices, just like a USB thumb drive.

As others have said: if a product doesn’t expressly list Win 10, it’s because they haven’t bothered to update their packaging (or distributors haven’t bothered to update their listings), which isn’t surprising for a product that probably hasn’t been changed in 10+ years.

[ebclr]

It's legacy hardware, nobody still uses except for 0,01% of legacy applications that are still alive, only idiots will try to find written support for Windows 10,  will work, and will never be marketed for support for windows 10 now 11 that is ridiculous it's a waste of forum time 

[Halcyon]

I've done some searching for an external USB 3.5" 1.44MB floppy drive which will work with Windows 10, but a lot of the matches (Amazon, Ebay, Google Shopping etc.) are very vague on whether they will work with Windows 10. Do you guys have any recommendations?

I've never run into any issues with USB Floppy Disk drives under Windows 10. There is no particular brand you need to look out for, they all seem to work.

5.25" floppy drives is an entirely different story, that support has been dropped.

[andy2000]

You'd think 5.25" support would have been dropped, but I just tried it and it worked fine.  I tested 1.2 M high density, and 360k.  It could even format single sided 160k disks if you need DOS 1.0 compatibility...

The trick is finding a system with a floppy controller that Windows 10 can run on, since no one has made a USB 5.25" drive. 

[james_s]

There probably isn't much reason to drop it, it works, and I would assume that the requirements to support it are broadly the same as for any other floppy drive. I can understand not dedicating time to test it, but why would anyone rip out support? What would it save, 2k of disk space?

[tooki]

There probably isn't much reason to drop it, it works, and I would assume that the requirements to support it are broadly the same as for any other floppy drive. I can understand not dedicating time to test it, but why would anyone rip out support? What would it save, 2k of disk space?

Based on other OSes, I’d hazard that it’s not the hardware support that poses a maintenance challenge, but the file system support.

[james_s]

IIRC there's no real difference in filesystem for the various MS-DOS floppy formats, whether 3.5" or 5.25" they're logically and electrically nearly identical, only the physical aspects are different.

[Halcyon]

You'd think 5.25" support would have been dropped, but I just tried it and it worked fine.  I tested 1.2 M high density, and 360k.  It could even format single sided 160k disks if you need DOS 1.0 compatibility...

The trick is finding a system with a floppy controller that Windows 10 can run on, since no one has made a USB 5.25" drive.

That's probably more accurate.

There probably isn't much reason to drop it, it works, and I would assume that the requirements to support it are broadly the same as for any other floppy drive. I can understand not dedicating time to test it, but why would anyone rip out support? What would it save, 2k of disk space?

Try telling Microsoft and Apple that ;-)

[james_s]

Do modern desktop motherboards not have floppy interfaces? I don't remember whether mind does or not, it's about 6 years old though. Pretty sure Win10 will run just fine on quite a few systems old enough to have one though.

[andy2000]

Do modern desktop motherboards not have floppy interfaces? I don't remember whether mind does or not, it's about 6 years old though. Pretty sure Win10 will run just fine on quite a few systems old enough to have one though.

Floppy controllers started to disappear around the time of the Core 2 Duo.  I doubt many (if any) Core i series boards have one.  For AMD they seemed to go away around the time of the AM2 to AM3 transition. 

Another old thing that works with Windows 10 is the Microsoft serial mouse.  It even works when booting from the install media for Windows 10. 

[SiliconWizard]

Do modern desktop motherboards not have floppy interfaces? I don't remember whether mind does or not, it's about 6 years old though. Pretty sure Win10 will run just fine on quite a few systems old enough to have one though.

They don't. I haven't seen a motherboard with floppy interface in over a decade. But you can always use a USB floppy drive.

[GlennSprigg]

Yea... I have an old IBM 1.44 Floppy Drive with a USB-1 connector. It works on 'everything' 
Handy, if you come across an old floppy with some important data to rip off!!!

It's funny remembering the older computer magazines that came with a Free 1.44 disk on the cover. 
Often containing some 15 or 20 'useful' software applications, as WELL as booting with a nice HTML interface!!