To do so, I resorted to using USB passthrough. Now that I knew that Windows Server could read a floppy disk, I had to figure out a way to get a Hyper-V virtual machine to recognize the disk. It is possible to make Windows Server 2019 read a floppy disk. It shows the Windows Server version and today's date, along with an A: drive in File Explorer and Windows 95 files dated July of 1995. Somewhat surprisingly however, my Windows Server 2019 machine that is configured as a Hyper-V server had no trouble reading the old Windows 95 boot disk. Being that the disk has been deteriorating in my attic for about 20 years I wasn't sure if it would be readable or if, for that matter, Windows Server would even recognize a USB floppy disk. I managed to get my hands on a USB floppy drive and I dug an old Windows 95 boot disk out of storage. My plan, therefore, was to try using a USB floppy disk drive. Modern PCs no longer include floppy disk controllers, so attaching a legacy floppy disk drive to a modern Hyper-V server was completely out of the question. Of course even the virtual floppy disk support was removed from Hyper-V quite a few years back. A virtual floppy disk was really just a file that acted like a floppy disk, kind of like how a virtual hard disk is a file that acts like a hard disk. At one time it was possible to attach a virtual floppy disk drive to a Hyper-V VM, but there is a big difference between a virtual floppy disk and a physical floppy disk. In case you are wondering, Hyper-V has never officially supported floppy disks.
I had a hunch that it could be done, but had never had a reason to actually try it, nor had I seen anyone else do it. This conversation ultimately led to a stupid bet over whether or not a modern Hyper-V virtual machine is capable of reading a physical floppy disk.Īt the time that I made the bet I honestly wasn't sure if it was possible to get Hyper-V to read a floppy disk or not. I recently had a conversation with an old friend and we remarked on how much both PCs and the Windows operating system have changed over time, and yet how they remain to a great extent backward compatible with the original IBM PC from the early 1980s.
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