It probably seems like a thing of yesterday when someone mentions a floppy disc. But if you run into a box full of those black and beautiful, 3.5” floppy discs that you stored your images from your old digital camera in, you feel a pang of nostalgia that modern computers don’t have disc drives.
So if you wish to retrieve data from old floppy discs, without a computer with a disc drive, what do you do? Well, you’re in luck because there are ways you can transfer data from floppy disk, without having to scour the antique shop for an old, big burly Compaq.
Get an External Disc Drive
These days, it is really easy to find an external disc drive on eBay and other places. In fact, they cost just about $15 to $20. Now that’s an amount you can easily spend for those priceless memories. All you need to do is plug it in and you can transfer all of your data yourself. It gets really simple once you get the right device.
First, you need to determine what kind of floppy disc you are dealing with. It could be a 5.25-inch floppy disc for Mac or a 3.5-inch Windows PC disc. Accordingly, you can get an external disc drive for your collection of floppies.
File Transfer Services
If you look online, you will come across a few websites that let you convert your floppy disc data. FloppyDisk.com and RetroFloppy.com are a couple of these. These websites help convert old files to formats new computers can read for a fee of about $6-$7 per disc.
Public Library
Another option you could try is going to an old, big public library, as it is most likely to have old computers that still have disc drives. You can easily retrieve data from your floppy discs on these computers and then use one of the aforementioned file transfer services to have them converted to a compatible format.
Get Professionals to Transfer Data from Floppy Disk
No matter what you try, sometimes you may not be able to successfully transfer the data. In such a situation, it is best to consult a professional for the job. TalkLocal can help you find professionals who can transfer all of your data in no time. We make sure to connect you to the best professionals in your area.
