

- External usb floppy drive for mac mac osx#
- External usb floppy drive for mac drivers#
- External usb floppy drive for mac driver#
- External usb floppy drive for mac Pc#
- External usb floppy drive for mac mac#
If his mom has a stack of old -Mac- floppies, USB floppy drives probably won't read them (regardless of what kind of software disk driver is used). This is why it's important to know exactly what kind of floppies the original poster is referring to.
External usb floppy drive for mac mac#
I believe that ALL USB floppy drives are limited to the 720/1.4 MFM format, and thus CANNOT read old Mac 800/1.8 GCR-formatted floppy disks.
External usb floppy drive for mac Pc#
PC floppy drives can still read ONLY the 720/1.4 MFM disks, and CANNOT read GCR-formatted (Mac) disks.Įventually, USB-based floppy drives came on the market, but Apple never sold them and by the time they arrived Apple had abandoned floppy drives. Later on, both the PC world and Apple moved to higher-capacity drives, PC's using 1.4mb and Apple using 1.8mb, respectively, and MFM and GCR, again respectively.Īpple brought out it's "SuperDrive" floppy unit, which could read BOTH GCR and MFM encoding formats. When Apple introduced their own floppy drive in the 1984 Macintosh, they used an 800k format with a DIFFERENT encoding system called "GCR". When PC's introduced 3.5" floppy disks, they used a 720k format with a specific "encoding paradigm" called "MFM". I'm not making it "too hard", but simply explaining issues involved. In fact, they were ancient while Macs still featured floppy drives." IIRC, there are some disks that a too old to be read by USB drives, but they are positively ancient. There are other ways of transferring the data, as well. Knowing which kind of floppies you have to read is the first step. This is because the old Macs used a special Mac-specific type of disk encoding which PC-formatted floppies do not use. If the floppies are from the 800k/1.8mb Mac era, you may have problems, as these disks cannot be read by USB floppy drives which are designed to read 720/1.4 formats.
External usb floppy drive for mac drivers#
Drivers -might- be a question, as I've never connected a USB floppy in OSX (no need to), but I'm wondering if the underlying disk drivers are just "there" buried within the OS. The drive should be able to read 720k and 1.4mb floppy drives. If the floppies are from a PC, you might be able to buy a USB floppy drive and connect it that way. Were they PC-created floppies, or were they Mac-created floppies? You didn't make clear what KIND of floppy disks your mom has - the answer is VERY important. (Aside: judging from your screen name, the Mac floppy era was from before you were born!) Macs started with 400k floppies, then went to 800k, then 1.8gb (the "SuperDrive") of that era, before DVD's).


My original Mac SE came with TWO of them.
External usb floppy drive for mac mac osx#
As a result the chances the floppy drives work with Mac OSX is minimal."įrom the very beginning, the Mac used floppy disks. USB Floppy-Disk Drive is not downward compatible with 720 Kbytes floppy disks."Apple never had 3.5" floppy drives - not even in the first iMac.
