virtualbox.org

As I said, drives like this do not work well in a Virtual Machine.

I suggest you reboot the host with the drive attached, and then open VirtualBox again. From that point, when you click on the floppy disk icon then you should have "Host Drive A:" as an option, along with "Choose a virtual floppy disk file". I say 'should' because it doesn't always work!

If you can't get it to work, then use image files. They do work.

dlharper wrote:As I said, drives like this do not work well in a Virtual Machine.

I suggest you reboot the host with the drive attached, and then open VirtualBox again. From that point, when you click on the floppy disk icon then you should have "Host Drive A:" as an option, along with "Choose a virtual floppy disk file". I say 'should' because it doesn't always work!

If you can't get it to work, then use image files. They do work.

Thanks dl. Tried that several times. It wont see the floppy.

ukdodger wrote:But it is plugged into the host. It shows in W7 and works fine.

In that case it is not a compatible drive. No doubt the host sees it as USB mass storage, not a traditional floppy drive.

But, you can still use it to make floppy images, as recommended.

mpack wrote:

ukdodger wrote:But it is plugged into the host. It shows in W7 and works fine.

In that case it is not a compatible drive. No doubt the host sees it as USB mass storage, not a traditional floppy drive.

But, you can still use it to make floppy images, as recommended.

Thanks mpack. I'll figure out how to do that.

Cheers to everyone who helped out.

ISTR that the floppy imaging tool I used was called "Rawrite" (or RawWrite). Not the friendliest software in the world, but it worked. Just make sure that it's a floppy imager, not a file copier and not a CD image preparation tool.

mpack wrote:ISTR that the floppy imaging tool I used was called "Rawrite" (or RawWrite). Not the friendliest software in the world, but it worked. Just make sure that it's a floppy imager, not a file copier and not a CD image preparation tool.

Thanks mpack. I'm in unknown territory here!

I've been meaning to say...

You haven't actually said why you want to attach a floppy drive to a VM. You say that you already have XP installed, so you aren't trying to install an old OS from floppies.

If it's just so you can get data into a VM then shared folders or even CD images would be much more efficient. For example, if you had a bunch of floppies to copy then the obvious thing would be to copy each floppy into it's own folder, then share the parent folder with the VM.

mpack wrote:I've been meaning to say...

You haven't actually said why you want to attach a floppy drive to a VM. You say that you already have XP installed, so you aren't trying to install an old OS from floppies.

If it's just so you can get data into a VM then shared folders or even CD images would be much more efficient. For example, if you had a bunch of floppies to copy then the obvious thing would be to copy each floppy into it's own folder, then share the parent folder with the VM.

I've got an old program called Intellisync that is used to transfer files (addresses and such) from a Sharp ZQ-570 organiser. The 570 is going on the blink and I stand to lose about 500 contacts. It was made for WXP. The program is in 16bit format on five 3.5inch floppys. W7 cant handle the 16bit. XP is my only hope. Could you expand on what you mean with copy and share? How do I do that?

Shared folders are configurable in the VM settings, and described in the user manual. The purpose is to allow your host to share folders - and the files they contain - with a VM.

So, the suggestion was to create a parent folder on your host. Inside that parent folder create subfolders, one per floppy, and copy each floppies contents into its corresponding folder. Then share the parent folder with the VM. So all of that faffing about with floppy images would be unnecessary.

Or even simpler: if an installer comes on multiple floppies it is usually IME possible to copy the entire file set into a single folder - which you copy into the VM via a shared folder - and then run the installer from the local (hd copy).

p.s. Even back in the day, database apps used to have export options, and one such export option would be "comma delimited format". It seems to me that your best long term solution would be to migrate all your contacts to a currently supported application. Excel can still read comma delimited text files (it calls them cvp files).

p.p.s. It would be very odd to design a 16bit app for XP! XP came out around 2002. That is 7 years after Windows 95, and a different Windows family altogether. Most likely the app was designed for Win3.1, so I think it's safe to say you got your money's worth, time to consider upgrading!

mpack wrote:Shared folders are configurable in the VM settings, and described in the user manual. The purpose is to allow your host to share folders - and the files they contain - with a VM.

So, the suggestion was to create a parent folder on your host. Inside that parent folder create subfolders, one per floppy, and copy each floppies contents into its corresponding folder. Then share the parent folder with the VM. So all of that faffing about with floppy images would be unnecessary.

Or even simpler: if an installer comes on multiple floppies it is usually IME possible to copy the entire file set into a single folder - which you copy into the VM via a shared folder - and then run the installer from the local (hd copy).

p.s. Even back in the day, database apps used to have export options, and one such export option would be "comma delimited format". It seems to me that your best long term solution would be to migrate all your contacts to a currently supported application. Excel can still read comma delimited text files (it calls them cvp files).

p.p.s. It would be very odd to design a 16bit app for XP! XP came out around 2002. That is 7 years after Windows 95, and a different Windows family altogether. Most likely the app was designed for Win3.1, so I think it's safe to say you got your money's worth, time to consider upgrading!

Thanks for all that. I'll have a go. All I know is it worked on my old XP. Sharp never made a better organiser after this one they got silly! But one question. How do I do the copy if W7 cant read the disk?

? I don't understand the question. Everything you have posted up to now has implied that you have a working USB floppy drive on your host. A Windows 7 PC is perfectly capable of reading a floppy drive, it just generally isn't provided with one. You use the host to copy the contents of the floppy disks to shared folders, as discussed. Win7 can copy files it can't execute.

mpack wrote:? I don't understand the question. Everything you have posted up to now has implied that you have a working USB floppy drive on your host. A Windows 7 PC is perfectly capable of reading a floppy drive, it just generally isn't provided with one. You use the host to copy the contents of the floppy disks to shared folders, as discussed. Win7 can copy files it can't execute.

Sorry I didnt know that. I assumed if it couldnt execute it wouldnt copy. I'll try all that and let you know.

Thanks.