3.5" floppy drive.

[jcdammeyer]

I have a 3.5" floppy drive inside my older Tektronix TDS3032 digital storage scope. I still use it a lot even though I have a bigger 4 channel Tek Scope c/w logic analyzer and USB connection.

TDS3032 - TekWiki

w140.com

The newer versions of the scopes, as the tekwiki states, replaced the floppy drive with a USB. My old WIN-XP system has a 3.5" floppy and normally I use it to read the files created by the scope. Then transfer them over the net to my WIN-7 or WIN-10 system.

Well... I thought I'd make things easier by purchasing a USB based 3.5" floppy drive.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32303441272.html

It arrived today. Read one floppy and then after that stopped working. Doesn't work on WIN-XP, WIN-7 or WIN-10. Wants to format the floppy because it's not readable. However it fails trying to format a floppy. The same floppy it tried to format can be formatted by the scope or by WIN-XP with the internal floppy drive.

Frustrating. Just thought I'd vent.

 

[Aliva]

Contact the seller. They may just send you a replacement

 

[Susquatch]

Read one floppy and then after that stopped working. Doesn't work on WIN-XP, WIN-7 or WIN-10. Wants to format the floppy because it's not readable. However it fails trying to format a floppy. The same floppy it tried to format can be formatted by the scope or by WIN-XP with the internal floppy drive.

I've never tried to use a USB Powered Floppy. I do have a USB powered CD drive burner. Every once in a while it does what your floppy drive does. I ASSUMED (you know what assumed means) that the problem was the power limitations of the USB interface. So I went and bought one like this. It isn't identical to mine but serves the same purpose and helps show what I mean.

Duttek USB 3.0 Y Splitter Cable, USB 3.0 Type A Female to Dual USB Male 1 to 2 Sync Data Charging Converter Y Extension Cable Cord (One Side Only for Charging) (1FM/2M) https://a.co/d/j8sZKVb

Only one of the pigtails is a full USB communications interface. The other pigtail only picks up power from the other USB outlet. The result is double the power to the CD Drive. It never gave me a problem after that.

When I got my first laptop with a USB3 output, I thought the increased power might also operate the CD drive. I was right. So I just don't use the pigtail when I plug into a USB3 Port and do when I plug into USB2.

I dont know for sure, but I would expect a floppy drive to have higher power requirements than a CD drive.

The other thing I found years ago with the floppy drives is that not all floppy disks are created equal. A junk disk was a recipe for problems. So I bought a whole brick of high quality disks and had far fewer problems.

 

[jcdammeyer]

I did try it in a USB 3 port. Don't have those on the WIN-XP system. I should try plugging it into the LinuxCNC system and also the Raspberry Pi4.

 

[jcdammeyer]

Contact the seller. They may just send you a replacement

Yes. All they asked so far is if I had the switch on when I tried to format. I believe they meant the write protect slider on the floppy. Can't find any switches on the drive itself. In either case, a floppy created on the internal drive of the WIN-XP system can be read by the TDS3032 scope floppy. Not by the USB floppy.
Sigh...

 

[FatherWes]

I’ve got a USB floppy drive (Hitachi if I recall correctly (and a USB CD/DVD-RW). Bought both used for maybe $10 or $20, way back. Both have worked fine for over a decade (not used often. Maybe once a year…)
My point is; there are good USB drives out there. Maybe search for older, brand name used ones?