USB Floppy Disk Reader, 3.5 inch External Portable 1.44 MB FDD Floppy Disk Drive for Windows 11/10/8/7/2000/XP PC Laptop Desktop Notebook Computer

What a blast from the past! A 3.5 inch floppy drive.

Worked well to read some old applications on floppy discs with a newer computer, easy to use

Once I had my computer person here to get it set up on my laptop, it works great. He set up a picture file on my home pagethat I can send the pictures I want to keep to. I advise getting a little better one than this one. After each disk I have to unplug from the computer to erase the memory of that disk.

I got quick delivery of the RAAYOO USB 3.5-inch diskette drive, model D001-BK (they also list this as part number RY-D001). Everything seemed to work fine. I was able to fully copy a 1.4 Mb diskette about 20 years old!! Thank you!!I tried this on an older HP Win7 laptop. With large stacks of my older diskettes (and my older computers are mostly dead), it's a relief to read these diskettes even though I backed up most of them to CD-ROM's and large USB hard disks long ago.Here are some observations:> If you are experienced with diskette drives, there is one HUGE observation:REPLUG TO CHANGE DISKETTESUnplug and reconnect the USB cable if you change diskettes. The User Manual mentions this and someone else here made a similar comment. This is different than most of us remember diskettes where you just pop in a new diskette. WON'T WORK!! It's no biggie, just remember to replug the USB otherwise the folder listings will be wrong.> The driver software takes a while to fully load after you plug in the USB cable. Wait a minute or so until the spinning icon on the taskbar finishes twirling and it reports a successful load. You'll only need this delay ONCE per computer. When you plug in the drive again, it will come to life quickly since it should find the driver already installed.I did NOT try this on a Win 10 but I suspect no problems. Nor did I try this on older, low density 720 Kb 3.5-inch diskettes. They make a big point of NOT using a USB extension cable. The supplied USB cord is about 18 inches.> Make sure that your Explorer folder and file skills are good (copy, paste, sort, rename files, etc.). When everything was ready, there was a correct "Drive A:" indication in my Windows File Explorer. It was located on TOP of Drive C:, possibly because the File Explorer puts the drives in alphabetical order.If you already have an installed "drive A:", this USB drive will probably relocate to another drive letter but I could not try this. You use that Explorer "Drive A:" icon to do your copying instead of the taskbar icon. I suggest copying a whole diskette to a new folder on your computer.> I don't recommend running an executable program (.EXE, .MSI or .COM file extension) directly from the diskette drive. (Okay, you call them "apps"!!) Running a program would probably work but instead, copy the file(s) to your main disk first. Then run the program. As you probably know, some older EXE and COM programs will not run under new Windows. You can try them under the COMMAND prompt. Be aware that some programs WRITE files to the default drive as they run.> Similarly, some older format programs can be copied but may not work (such as WRI or ".WS" Wordstar files?). Or you may be able to load them and re-save to newer formats. You may have to play tricks in the file menu to emulate running under an older operating system.> I was able to copy (write) a file TO the diskette drive from my main disk. I did NOT attempt to FORMAT (initialize) a new blank diskette. Again, it would probably work but why do it?? I am guessing that this USB diskette drive does the correct things with the file layout (FAT, etc.). Remember to adjust the Write Protect gadget off if you wish to attempt writing.> As usual, make sure that your entire computer is always fully backed up. I didn't write the driver for this diskette drive so hopefully, it has no problems.

This is a very bad product. Part of the problem is that it seems to work wonderfully when it comes right out of the box, then slowly becomes erratic and ultimately messes up one's system.We were were thrilled when our Raayoo first arrived. It allowed us to swap files back and forth between our upstairs and downstairs computers, which is what we'd been hoping for.Then, slowly, performance began to degrade. The first difficulty was that that when we tried to save a file we'd get "disk not formatted. Do you want to format disk now?" (If you say "yes," by the way, nothing happens.) We at first assumed that the problem was with our own disks, but this turned out to be wrong. We tried old-fashioned mini-disks, newer high density disks, newly-bought disks right out of the package, etc. No result.It gets worse. Thinking that this might just be a faulty unit that got past quality control, we ordered another from Amazon. The exact same thing happened: (1) terrific performance for about two weeks, then (2) "disk not formatted" messages, then (3) refusal to recognize the disk drive altogether. We didn't order a third, assuming that it, too, would be junk.In an attempt to figure out what was going on, we spent hours going to tech sites. What we found is that hundreds of people had our same experience: "disk needs to be formatted," "drive not recognized," etc etc.There were work-arounds, and we tried every one. For instance, one site mentioned that the Raayoo, plugged into a USB hub, might be getting too little power. The solution was to shift it from the hub to a direct USB port on the main computer unit.We did this, and it worked. Once. Then it was back to "disk needs to be formatted" and "drive not recognized," and the rest. So: back to where we started.The only good thing about all these dysfunctions was that we found that literally hundreds of people were having the same experience: "disk in drive needs formatting," etc etc. Also that most of them had tried the same workarounds -- unplug from hub, plug into direct port -- and had temporary success followed by permanent failure.We're writing this review solely to warn other customers not to be fooled because some reviews, based on initial experience, are positive. We too were thrilled when our portable drives came right out of the box. Then, as problems developed, we were relieved to find that there were workarounds that would let us keep on using the product. And finally, we were dismayed and disappointed to find that hundreds of people had had exactly our own experience.The takeaway: don't be fooled if your portable drive works wonderfully for a week or a month. Don't be fooled if going on the web lets you find some workarounds that temporarily seem to resolve the problem. Do be prepared to throw your portable drive on the junk pile after you've used it for a relatively short time. Until then, enjoy it: the idea is a good one. It's the technology that's flawed.

Works better with Windows 10 than 11 but that's true of just about everything. Shows up as drive B: on Windoze 11 and can't be accessed. But if you go to My PC there is an A: drive that correctly reads the 3.5" discs. Works without work a rounds on Windows 10. Managed to throw away boxes of old discs that were useless and retrieved a few old files that were of interest. After spending hours trying to get several old PCs to boot and read a floppy I should have just scrapped them (I did) and bought this instead.

It might be fine but would not read my old files.

Worked like a charm. Great directions for use.