I need to get software copied from 5.25" to 3 1/2" disks...but where?

Answer 1

Some desktop computers have either a 3½" diskette or no diskette drive installed, but still have the ribbon cable connector available on the motherboard. As others have suggested, you could swap the 3½" and 5¼" drives, copying the files to/from the hard drive as intermediate storage. Modern versions of Windows (through XP; don't know about Vista) will generally be able to recognize and read from 5¼" diskettes, but cannot format or write to them. See your Windows' help or http://support.microsoft.com to be sure. As a safety precaution, you may want to write protect the source diskettes.

You may be able to find a ribbon cable with two connectors at a computer supply store, or online, and use it to connect both diskette drives to the motherboard at the same time. In this case, one of them will be your A: drive, and the other will be the B: drive. Just copy your files from one to the other. Note that bootable diskettes may present special challenges.

I don't know if there are still such services, but there were several businesses that would do this type of data conversion for a fee. Searching may find such businesses.

Answer 2

I think that you can connect a ' 5.25 ' Floppy Drive to the same Ribbon connector that you use to connect a ' 3.5 ' Drive.
Once you have a ' 5.25 ' Floppy Drive connected this way, copy the data that you want from it to a folder that you create on your Hard Disk drive. Turn of the computer disconnect this ' 5.25 ' Disk drive and connect you ' 2.5 ' Floppy Drive back. Now if you wish you can copy the data that you saved earlier to your Hard Disk Drive, back to your ' 2.5 ' Floppy.

You maybe able to find a 5.25 Drive installed on some old computer or something. You may also have to change the Drive setting in the BIOS( from 2.5 to 5.25.)

Answer 3

Most computers made today no longer have 3 1/2 drives even. You can buy separate USB plug in 3 1/2 drives at places like Staples or CompUSA. I have no idea where you could get a 5 1/2 drive or if a modern computer would even recognize them!