Hmmm... the 5.25" drives predate the IDE interface. In fact, originally they were meant as smaller versions of the 8" drives and were almost all hardware driven. This is why it is still possible to find USB 3.5" floppy drives, but no USB 5.25" drives.

While a floppy - USB interface *did* exist (http://www.deviceside.com/fc5025.html), it's not listed anywhere I'm aware of.

Or, you could do a massive hack like this one: http://cowlark.com/fluxengine/doc/building.html

Well... this a perfect example of how obsolete tech simply fades into oblivion. We can still read hieroglyphs because we just need our eyes and knowledge. Bur for reading digital media, we need tech and A LOT of knowledge.

Also, the technology gets more and more delicate... while by normal standards (compared to our lifetimes), high-tech items (computers, cameras, etc.) are sturdy and last long, on a larger time frame they are pretty weak and once they really stop working, there is no way to bring them back. No way to revive a dead chip.

What is valuable, is the data... if it gets regularly transferred to new media (SD to disk, dist to cloud, etc.) then it can be preserved, but the original media will be unreadable.