While cleaning my office, I uncovered an old dual 3.5″ and 5.25″ floppy drive. Since I occasionally convert disks for clients, I decided to build a system capable of running it.
I picked up a Gateway Pentium 4 system in an aftermarket case from Keeper of the Grumper, a local non-profit seller on eBay. The machine featured an Intel Pentium 4 541 dual-core processor at 3.2 GHz (Socket LGA 775) and cost $23.86 after tax, with next-day pickup.
After some tinkering, I discovered the motherboard only supported a single-channel floppy cable, making my dual floppy drive unusable. As it turns out, the drive itself is so old it actually requires a 286-era system or earlier to run both drives simultaneously.
At that point, the system had no practical use for my original goal. Since I typically emulate older operating systems with VirtualBox rather than restore truly old hardware, I pivoted. Instead, I repurposed the Pentium 4 as a retro gaming PC aimed at late-1990s and early-2000s nostalgia—something Gen-X gamers would instantly recognize.
Case Refresh and Prep
I fully tore the system down and repainted the case black, keeping the original cream and silver accents. This gave it a cleaner look that matched the two black DVD drives. I also removed the cream IDE CD-ROM drive and installed a functional black floppy drive.
Making It XP Gaming-Ready
Turning this into a functional Windows XP gaming system required several upgrades. Due to the platform’s age, sourcing parts affordably was a challenge. IDE drives are increasingly rare, and without SMART diagnostics, they’re difficult to test reliably. That meant leaning heavily on adapters and expansion cards.
Required additions included:
- USB 3.0 PCI adapter
- Gigabyte Ethernet card
- AGP graphics card (to replace onboard video)
- Additional DDR2 memory (originally just 256 MB)
- IDE-to-SATA adapters and extra cabling
Cost Breakdown
Total out-of-pocket cost for new/New Used parts: $94.40
- USB 3.0 PCI card — $15.27
- Gigabyte LAN card — $9.54
- Gigabyte ATI Radeon 9550 256 MB AGP — $26.51
- Gateway Pentium 4 CPU — $23.86
- 4 GB DDR2 (4 × 1 GB) — $8.00
- Cables and adapters — $11.22
All other components came from my existing inventory.
Final Build
- Wi-Fi 802.11ac
- Intel Pentium 4 541 dual-core 3.2 GHz (LGA 775)
- 4 GB DDR2 RAM
- 512 GB SSD
- 240 GB HDD (VirtualBox)
- 1 TB HDD (storage)
- Nvidia Quadro FX 1700 (1 GB)
- 3.5″ floppy drive
- Gigabyte Ethernet
- Sound Blaster Live 5.1
- Bluetooth
- USB 1.0 / 2.0 / 3.0
- 4 × SATA
- 1 × EIDE (master + slave)
- USB keyboard and mouse
- Generic speakers
The finished system has an estimated total parts value of around $200 and now serves as a fully functional Windows XP retro gaming machine—born from a floppy drive project that went sideways.