In this day and age, with the fact that most new pc’s do not have floppy drives anymore, as a tech, I still find times where bring out an old reliable floppy is my best way to resolve a problem. Many people still have some “classic” tools that are on floppy, or documents or pictures saved on floppy (Before CDRW/DVDRW drives became the norm, floppy disks were the way to store and transfer files). Today’s post will cover Getting the Iomega USB floppy drive working on newer Windows OS
Problems With Iomega Floppy On Newer Windows
The problem is that many of the Floppy drives do not have drivers or “official” support for Windows Vista or later. This post covers just such an issue. I use an Iomega USB drive, and whenever I plug it into my Windows 7 pc’s, I get a message that Windows can’t find a driver for my device.
Steps To Get Iomega working with Windows
Here are some simple steps to get your drive to work with Windows Vista, 7, 8, or 10
1) When you install the drive you will get the message that your drive needs to find drivers. Just hit Cancel
2A) For Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 – Go to start –> Control Panel –> System –> Device Manager.
(Example from Windows 7, Vista may look a little different)
2B) For Windows 10 – In the “Search the web and Windows” box type Control Panel. When the choice for control panel comes up, select it. This will open the control panel. Once in control panel, select Device Manager.
3) When the Device Manager opens you will see a listing for X1DE-USB with a Yellow triangle next to it under Other Devices. On that line item right mouse click (NOTE IM SAYING RIGHT MOUSE) and then select Update Driver software and left mouse click (NOTE THAT I SAID LEFT)
4) Now select Browse my computer for driver software
5) Now select Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer and click on Next
6) Now you will get a box to select your device type from list, click on “Show All Devices” and click on Next
7) In the following window, for the box on the left select NEC Systems, and then on the right select NEC USB Floppy then click on Next
8 ) You will be told by Windows that “Installing this device driver is not recommended…..” its ok just click on Yes to continue.
9) Lastly you will be told that Windows has successfully updated your driver software.
Now if you look at the Device Manager you will see the listing for Floppy disk drive – Citizen X1DE.
Finally if you look in the My Computer icon, you will see the A: drive listed for your floppy drive
With that you now have a working Floppy USB drive.
Great help – now I can see floppies in W10
Makes the device visible and I have a device A: (Floppy). But any floppy I put in it is listed as unformatted or unreadable. Does this device driver include the file sytem format reader of old? Or have all the floppies simply gone bad over time and appear unformatted?
It should read once the drive is listed. It is very possible (unfortunately) that the disk itself has gone bad. Floppy disks can go bad especially if they get exposed to many temp changes.
Thank You very much for your solution, saved me a lot of time, You Are Appreciated.
Thanks for your instructions for the same floppy like yours I own, but surprisely up to the last moment I went, not worked at the final step on my Win7. That is to say that, after I selected to install the driver, it refers to this message:
“Windows encountered a problem installing the driver software for your device” – “Windows found driver Software for your device but encountered an error while attempting to install it” – “NEC USB Floppy” – “This device cannot start. (Code 10)”…
Any idea how to solve it?
I would try to reboot pc and then try the steps again as soon as the reboot happens. Sometimes code 10 can happen when other programs run causing issues with the installer. That would be my 1st thing to try. Let me know if that doesn’t do it.
Perfect!
Many thanks. Worked perfectly.
Thank you very much! It works perfectly within my W10-64 bit.
The 3,5″ floppy drive is a Samsung SFD-321U/HP built 2003.3.
I recovered an essay which I wrote in 1992! Although the file extension was a weird one, Word-2016 had no trouble opening it.
Who said data on floppies will only last for 10 years?!
Great !
Glad it helped.
Nice. Thanks:-)
I selected the wrong driver by accident, and I need to go to a different manufacturer, but the wizard will not show me different manufacturers. I’ve tried restarting it, with no luck. Any ideas?
In a couple of cases for those who could not get the steps to work, the work around has been to download the NEC Floppy file from Fujitsu and unzip the downloaded file. At step 7 select have disk, and point to the unzipped file. The path should look like C:\fsc.tmp\usb\nec_floppy_v2_2_w2k. You can download the file at http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/IndexDownload.asp?SoftwareGuid=FA24D399-CB1C-470D-9D18-1086D18D3C05
Worked perfectly for iomega floppy on windows 10
Many thanks for the help
Thank you! Works great!
Thank you! Worked like a charm on my Iomega USB Floppy Plus.
Still useful. Thank you so much for this turorial.
Worked in windoze 10 64bit. Thanks!
Thank you very much for taking the time to share this fix with others. Every step was clear and correct. My A: drive is now working again. Great advice!
i can’t find the “NEC USB floppy” option i have win 10 pro – 64bits
In a couple of cases for those who could not get the steps to work, the work around has been to download the NEC Floppy file from Fujitsu and unzip the downloaded file. At step 7 select have disk, and point to the unzipped file. The path should look like C:\fsc.tmp\usb\nec_floppy_v2_2_w2k. You can download the file at http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/IndexDownload.asp?SoftwareGuid=FA24D399-CB1C-470D-9D18-1086D18D3C05
Worked a treat in W7 pro 64 ! Thank you.
Thank you !
Cheers! Worked perfectly! Thanks for the help.
THANK YOU!!!!! I APPRECIATE YOUR HELP!!!!!
I was going to recycle this old floppy drive but your steps got it to work in Windows 7 Enterprise.
Thanks for these steps!
Alicia
I attempted this, but after step 8 it gives me an error and says “Windows found driver software for your device but encountered an error while installing it [line break] NEC USB Floppy [line break] The data is invalid.”
Also, my computer doesn’t recognise it as a floppy drive, it thinks that it is a “generic USB hub”. I assumed this was due to the drivers not being installed, but after this I’m kinda curious…
In a couple of cases for those who could not get the steps to work, the work around has been to download the NEC Floppy file from Fujitsu and unzip the downloaded file. At step 7 select have disk, and point to the unzipped file. The path should look like C:\fsc.tmp\usb\nec_floppy_v2_2_w2k. You can download the file at http://support.ts.fujitsu.com/IndexDownload.asp?SoftwareGuid=FA24D399-CB1C-470D-9D18-1086D18D3C05
Brilliant thank you, saved the day.
Beautifully explained/laid out instructions (AbFab baby!!) Big hugs n’kiss for you! I have TONS of old pics, gifs & midi files exclusively on floppies & thanks to you I can access & burn em on to cds. Yes I am old & always AT LEAST 10 yrs behind the times but I’m happy with the stuff Im used to working with. Thank you again. j.
Thank you so much! I spent all day trying to get it working and this did the job! Thanks a million times over!
I was tasked by a friend to retrieve some files from some old computers. No network cards. No USB ports. One even had the old bigger din type keyboard plug. Anyway, no way but a floppy disk to get the information off. I had a old IoMega USB floppy drive that I thought was useless until I found this page. Worked great!
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. Worked perfectly on a Win 7 Pro 64. All info from 1997 still fine and copied with no problem to my hard drive.
Thank you!! Very good help!