KOOBOOK 1.44MB 3.5" USB Floppy Drive Connector 34P Adapter with Power Cable

Works better than I expected. The biggest issues to get tripped on are the power connector(s) and the UBS solder joint(s). Two floppy connector must be used. One to the KOOBOOK and a second one to the floppy device. As pointed out by others the USB connection on the KOOBOOK board is weak. Get your soldering iron and glue gun out, and track down a tie wrap. As you can see in the picture the this device must be treated as "hobbyist" project. For another 10 bucks I would have paid for a case to protect the KOOBOOK and to provide more secure connections.

I built a new i9 Windows 11 PC in an old ATX case and decided to keep the old floppy drive that was in there. Since my new Gigabyte MB has no connector for floppy drives, I decided to try this floppy to USB adapter. I read all of the reviews here, so the first thing I did upon receiving the item was secure the USB cord to the module to make sure there would be no added stress on the fragile glue-covered solder connections. I carefully plugged the board into my floppy drive, making sure it was not upside down or offset. Then I plugged the USB cord into an internal USB 3.2 Gen 1 port on the motherboard via a USB 3.0 to 19-pin MB adapter cable. My floppy drive was already powered from the power supply, so I did not use the short power cable that came with this adapter. Now I have Floppy Disk Drive A in Windows and it works as good it ever did 30 yeas ago. Be aware that if the floppy disk is not write-protected, any modern version of Windows will create the hidden System Volume Information directory on the floppy disk. If you don't want Windows to modify your disk, be sure to write-lock it before inserting it. I only wish I could change the drive letter, but this adapter adds the drive to Windows as the internal drive A, which cannot be mapped to a different letter. I would have preferred that the drive appear in Windows like any other USB drive, which can be mapped to any drive letter. That's not a big issue though. Overall I'm happy to be able to read my old floppies on my new PC now.

I have purchased two of these adapters in the past to adapt internal floppy disk drives with newer motherboards lacking a FDD controller. While the adapter card is great, the choice of USB cable is terrible. With both adapters, I had to desolder the included USB cable with the external USB-A plug, and replace it with the proper internal USB header cable to connect to the motherboard. For an additional $5-10, you can purchase an internal motherboard adapter to connect the installed USB-A cable to, but the cable on the second adapter I've purchased, was poorly soldered to the PCB, with solder bridging the gap between ground and one of the data pins. So even then, you may as well replace the cable with the correct one if you have one lying around. The PCB was printed with the intention of an internal USB header cable to be connected. Use the proper cable, solder it properly, and I would give this 5 stars. Otherwise, the product works great. It not only adapts the floppy drive connection to USB, but also powers the drive as well.

This item works, but my main problem is the item is poorly constructed and fragile. The white blob of glue fell off of my item entirely. Now, I'm worried about the wires being ripped out from where they are soldered. Be warned that this item is hard to test just because so many things can go wrong: bad floppy drive, bad USB port, or a problem with power. It's also easy to install wrongly by accident, e.g. it can be connected upside down to the floppy drive, or off-by-one. Also, many floppy disks have gone bad by now. I would not use this item to power a floppy drive. It does not seem safe to do so. The USB 2.0 spec supports only up to 2.5 W but I think some floppy drives can use 3.5 W. I powered my floppy drive independently from this item, just to be safe. This item works with DS HD 3.5" disks (1.44 MB). I have been unable so far to get this item to work with a double density disk (720 KB). The USB cable was sufficiently long for my full tower (Rosewill Thor V2) case. This item works on Windows 10. Note that right-clicking on random files (e.g. on your desktop) in Windows 10 will bring up a "Send to" menu and allow you send things to various drives including A:. Unfortunately every time you right-click on a file, Windows will check the floppy drive and make some noise. There is a registry setting to disable this useless "send to drive" feature. I found Ubuntu also accessed the drive too often so I applied some other OS setting there.

Never draws more than 0.3A even while long formatting. Verified through USB inline meter. This might depend on your drive. I tried it with a couple mitsumi's and a TEAC FD505. None of them drew more than 0.3A. Unfortunately my FD505 doesn't read disks anymore, the stepper motor for the read arm on the 3.5 click but don't move and LOL I don't have any old 5.25's to test. I suspect the electrolytics have dried out. But it wanted to work which tells me this device is issuing the proper commands. With that said, this allowed me to read and write all my old 3.5" floppies. Haven't looked in like 20 years. Found a Win98 boot disk, woohoo! I admit the hot glue is an amateur move but there is a hole in the card near the back edge that you can secure the cable to the card with a small zip tie. Works like a champ. Inexpensive and works. Can't beat that.

ONLY buy if you are either a masochist, willing to deal with more problems than the results are worth, or don"t mind blowing $20.00 on a product just to experience the problems others have reported. First, the category. An adapter to convert a standard 34 pin flat ribbon cable interface 3.5" floppy disk drive to a USB interface controller. This product is of particular interest and use for those that have, or would like to have, a 3.5" FDD mounted in a 3.5 bay in their computer case. That was me! On Amazon, there is a dozen or more different listings for this category of device. The small pictures on each listing look similar. And guess what, if you zoom in you will see EXACTLY the same part number on the printed circuit board! Now the bad downsides from a bit of my research. First, it is an OLD design of controller on the board. It was possibly designed for USB 2.0 even before USB 3.0 was released. Why does that matter. There are differences between the two protocols that if not handled properly in the microcode, they cause flat out or intermittent problems. Examples: 1. USB 2.0 type A connector is 4 pins and USB 3.0 type A is 9 pins. Four pins in front and 5 more behind the 4 front ones. This controller has a 4 pin USB 2.0 plug on the cable. 2. USB 2.0 is limited to 500 mA of power and a USB 3.0 port smart controller is limited to 900 mA for a USB 3.0 device. The smart USB 3.0 controller design specifications requires an attempt at backward compatibility. When it detects a USB 2.0 device plugged into the USB 3.0 port, the specification says to limit the power to 500 mA for that USB 2.0 device. 3. The FDD controller board requires some power for it to operate, so you will have less than 500 mA left over to operate the FDD itself. The great majority of standard 3.5" FDDs require more than 500 mA to operate at all. Often in the over 800 mA range. Which is why the Aha! I will just plug it into the higher power USB 3.0 type A connector doesn't work. Using some old computer power cables and a soldering iron, I made a FDD power cable that connected to the computer power supply. That only took a couple of hours and eliminated one problem. 4. There was no USB 2.0 type A inside the case on my motherboard. So I ordered the adapter that converts the 9 pin USB 2.0 connection on the motherboard to two USB 2.0 type A connectors and a USB 2.0 male to female extension cable. 5. I then discovered that of the two adapters that I had ordered, one adapter sort of worked, The second one was either DOA or died while I was trying to get something to work right. 6. As I had zero confidence that I had a reliable FDD setup that I could have faith in, I went with the Plan B I had been trying to avoid! Having a USB floppy sitting on the desk next to the computer 7. So for $3.00 more, on Amazon, I ordered what the comments said was the way better of the two 3.5" FDDs that come with a built-in floppy disk to USB controller. Namely the GODBPNYMU brand. On my Win10 desktop, with the last update, Windows 10 Pro 22H2, plugged into a USB type A port, 2.0 or 3.0, it worked fine and at the same speed as the floppy on my Windows XT OS computer that has a floppy controller built-in to the motherboard. 8. I tried the unit on a Win 11 26H2 version laptop. It seemed to work fine on any of the three port types. USB 2.0, 3.0, type A, or USB C. I have to click on "This computer" to get it to show up on the list of drives. One minor annoyance that is likely to be caused by the USB interface/controller, every few minutes, on either computer, I can hear the head load and the motor run, while I guess it is checking the status of the drive. So if I am not actively using the drive, I unplug it. Other than that issue, I am happy with the drive and recommend it. PS. In Win 11, when I click on remove the drive, it tells me my drive is a Teac.

It works but you have to be super gentle with it cause the glue doesn't glue and the wires aren't soldered on that well. Had to resolder them back on. Cord length is enough to put the wire from the card to the floppy drive, but not long enough to reach a motherboard if you were to put it internally. Not easy to install, you gotta give it a good push, and since the wires will literally just pop off it's not that great. Way too much money for something that was probably 2 cents to make.

Installed this on my sleeper build, runs a little on the slow side but considering I'm using a floppy drive on a computer thats nearly 20 years older than the drive itself that is to be expected. The chip itself is a little on the flimsy side, but if you aren't stupid that shouldn't be an issue considering it will live in a steel box. One thing to note is the unit doesn't quite meet the voltage requirement to power on a drive, but its close enough to where it works. Like, the floppy drive will read and write, but its slower than if it were in a machine from the floppy disk era. That being said I'm mostly using this for very basic stuff so speed isn't an issue. 8.75/10, 5 stars overall.

I thought it would fit on a floppy drive

Works as advertised. I can now hook an internal 3.5 inch floppy drive to my main computer. Mostly use it for transferring programs to and from my old Windows 3.1 486DX2 66.

I got this to get my tower PC an internal Floppy drive. While it does work and fits nicely inside my PC without protuding for some reason it's limit to only reading 1.44M Floppies and 720K Floppy's don't read. Not sure if this is a limitation of the adapter or the drive itself, but for what I needed it does work