I was just checking my eBay purchase (CF card HDD for Amiga) and in the recommendations I spotted this rather cool little 1541 to USB device that lets you plug your commodore drives into a PC. Theres also software to write .D64's and other archived drive software back to the drive for use on your original machine.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/XU1541-interface-connect-your-C-drive-to-PC-thru-USB-SMD-version-NEW-/321532221228?pt=US_Vintage_Computers_Mainframes&hash=item4adcd0572c
If I had a drive, obviously I'd get one (providing one of the C64's here works that is). But for anybody who didn't know about this, I can imagine this might become invaluable in producing FDD's for your C64 without other wizz-bang solutions... That said, I have no idea how long this has been around. Odds are that everybody knows about it already!