3.5" USB External Floppy Disk Drive Portable 1.44 MB FDD USB Drive Plug and Play for PC Windows 10 7 8 XP Vista Mac Black (1P)

I have boxes full of old 3.5" floppies including many from a deceased family member that I wanted to review and possibly save a few files to hard drive. Other than that there is no realistic use for having a 3.5" drive on a regular basis. So if it survived the task of letting me review a hundred or so disks the $13 price will have been well worth it. Comments: 1. Surprisingly nice quality of construction 2. Installed itself under Win 7 in a few seconds 3. Recognized the first disk I inserted and read it perfectly, and every disk thereafter 4. Brought back memories of how slow 3.5" floppies really were (not the fault of the drive) 5. The actual manufacturer of the drive is NEC NOTE: If you plug the drive in and no motor starts whirring or lights come on, don't assume it's defective. The drive will ONLY spin up after you insert a disk AND manually select Drive A on your list of drives, then it goes dormant again until you mouse click on a file you want to open. I think that's why some people thought they received a defective drive. [UPDATE] - I hadn't finished the task of copying the old floppies yet and recently bought a new high-end computer with Win 7 - 64 bit (by choice). Same as before, the drive was recognized instantly and had no problem reading the disks. I offer this to others who are trying to work with old floppies that may be 30 years old ... it may not be this drive but simply that with time those old disks have aged to the point they are just not usable. 95% of mine read fine but a few were simply too old and dried out to spin properly.

Works as expected, used to get photos from an old Sony Mavica floppy disk camera.

Windows 10 did recognize the empty floppy drive in File Explorer (showed up in left window pane) as soon as I plugged it in. However, when I put a floppy in the drive, it disappeared from the left pane window. Early on in my floppy drive research I jotted down some user feedback which I referenced and got the drive to show up. The key was to click "This PC" listing in File Explorer. The drive read the floppy disc and every floppy I inserted into it afterwards. I was able to copy everything over to my PC. Sharing the below steps for those who may have recently had Win 10 issues for reference. Don't recall who the original poster was or where it was originally posted to, but I would like to thank him/her. It worked for me and hopefully others too. 1. I would recommend that you set yourself up as ADMINISTRATOR, so the computer allows you to override its normal operation, but perhaps it might not be necessary. 2. After you have successfully started Windows 10, with no disk in the Floppy Drive, plug in the drive's USB plug into a USB socket on the computer. Wait until Windows 10 recognizes the new USB device, and settles. 3. Insert a disk into the Drive. The Drive will whir for a few seconds. 4. After the disk stops whirring, bring up Windows File Explorer. 5. The Main Menu Tree will appear on the left side of the screen, but the Floppy Drive will probably not show up there. This is normal. If it does show up, skip to Step 9. 6. Click on the "This PC" listing on the Main Menu Tree. The main screen should show all the drives in the computer, including the new Floppy Drive, which should be shown as Drive A. 7. Right-Click on the Drive A Floppy Drive Icon. A menu should appear. 8. At the top of the Right-Click Menu should be "open". Click it. This lets the Operating System "see" the Floppy Drive. Drive A Floppy Drive should now appear on the left Main Menu Tree, and can be used like any other Drive in the system. 9. To see the files stored on the Floppy Drive, click on Drive A Floppy Drive in the Main Menu Tree, and the files should appear on the Main Screen. 10. Cut, Paste, Copy the files as you would other files in the system. 11. Remember, this is VERY OLD TECHNOLOGY, and takes a bit of time to do anything. Always wait for the disk to stop whirring before trying to do anything else. 12. When done, Eject the disk, then when the Disk Drive stops whirring, unplug the USB plug.

I was hesitant to buy this after reading some of the reviews, but it worked flawlessly the first time I plugged it in. I was able to go through about 20 of my roughly 40 old floppies, and retrieve files from them. But when I came back the next day to finish the task, the drive no longer worked. It doesn't even appear under "my pc" anymore. After writing this review, the company immediately contacted me and offered a full refund. With customer service like that, there is no reason not to give this a try.

Broke completely after a single floppy. The first disk worked, but on the second disk the eject mechanism broke completely and it no longer accepts floppies. Terrible quality! Edit: I opened the thing up to hopefully salvage the drive. The eject mechanism is flawed in a manner I can't believe is present in a production device. IF THE EJECT MECHANISM STICKS (and it will) DO NOT FORCE THE FLOPPY OUT LIKE I DID. This destroyed the floppy disk and the drive head. Open the drive as follows: 1. UNPLUG the drive. 2. Remove the single screw on the bottom side and use a flathead screwdrive to pop open the case. 3. Remove the metal chassis. Unscrew the single screw on the top, rear side that is in a bit of an indentation in the jacket. Slide the jacket backwards and remove. 4. There is a white plastic arm. Push it forward and the disk should fly out the front. If not, push the disk back into the drive and then push the white plastic arm forward. Repeat a few times until it works. Wiggle the eject button, too. 5. Replace the metal jacket, and I would say don't replace the plastic case at this point since you'll need to unstick many disks, but it might be a shock hazard to touch the metal, I don't know. So I'm not going to say that. Replace the plastic case but don't screw it back. 6. Go back in time and don't buy this drive in the first place. What a shoddy, shoddy piece of craftsmanship. As far as I can tell, every USB floppy drive sold on Amazon is suspect. This is what I'm going to do: buy a normal 3.5 inch internal floppy drive (~$8) and an external USB enclosure for it and make my own USB floppy drive.

It was super simple to use on an M1 Mac mini. Just plug and play. Worked flawlessly.

Amazing product great creativity in the unboxing letter they have told everything about the desk and I really helps to work it out please try to use it on a windows 10 PC as windows 11 new PC's it's quite difficult to even find the floppy drive on it

No tuve problemas para conectar la unidad de diskettes y la reconoce como unidad A

Fonctionne comme prévu lorsque connecté directement au port USB de l'ordinateur mais pas si connecté sur une extension USB. Je n'ai pas essayé via un concentrateur USB alimenté.

El producto llegó antes de la fecha estimada y funcionó correctamente; me deshice de decenas de diskettes guardados en el archivero y recuperé información y fotos que no recordaba.