What does HackerNews think of greaseweazle?
Tools for accessing a floppy drive at the raw flux level
Language:
Python
Better yet, GreaseWeazle[0].
If you get yourself a greaseweazle (or have an stm32 blue pill laying around) it will allow you to create a disk image of the disks over usb
To still be able to read/write floppies proper with modern computers, handling custom formats, the excellent GreaseWeazle, also Keir Fraser's: https://github.com/keirf/greaseweazle
This is pretty much the only way 5.25" floppies are read today with modern equipment. While you can still get USB 3.5" floppy drives there are no USB 5.25" floppy drives. Modern PCs don't have the correct drive headers anymore, either, and even if they did, they wouldn't be able to read Commodore or Apple II floppies.
However, there is hardware and software called GreaseWeazle that actually reads the magnetic flux transitions on the disks to extract the data within.
On a similar note, I just bought a Greaseweazle. Floppy disc to USB capture.
https://github.com/keirf/greaseweazle
I've been through some childhood 5 1/2 inch floppies. Some still work. Found some old BBC BASIC programs. Very nostalgic.
Works, but I'd suggest Greaseweazle[0] for a much more powerful solution using a microcontroller of similar cost.