Reading 400K Floppies on Windows/Mac

[lhn555]

I need to read one so I can transfer files from my other computers to my Macintosh SE and from my Macintosh SE to the other computers.


Is there anyway to do this without buying anything/something really cheap? (All the other ways I've found involve buying another computer, which I don't think supports the internet, so how would I download stuff and put it on the floppy?)

 

[Caine]

Just buy a USB floppy reader or build a floppy reader into a spare desktop if you have any.

 

[Mr Rob]

For a moment there, I thought you wanted to read 400,000 floppies.

 

[lhn555]

Just buy a USB floppy reader or build a floppy reader into a spare desktop if you have any.

*facepalm*


I have one, it won't read one formatted like that.

 

[Mr Rob]

Hmm, what sort of OS's do you have around?


I've had a tiny bit of luck reading a floppy from a Macintosh Performa to my laptop running Debian Linux. But it just plugged in and was read automagically. From there you could transfer it wherever.


Of course that's not Macintosh SE, but it may be similar enough to work.


I was thinking the Pandora might be able to pull it off actually (and would be quite the success story), but I don't know if that has the proper utilities. If not and you don't have another Linux box handy, you could just make a live USB or CD pretty easy and boot into that as a one time thing.

 

[slaeshjag]

I'm trying this, as I'm a little curious about it. I have had no success reading 440k nor 880k (media error), going to make an attempt to format a 720k floppy with some MFS-ish file system.


EDIT: I'm starting to think that my USB-floppy drive isn't going to help me though, as I now remeber that it has yet to read *ANY* floppy successfully.

 

[lhn555]

Hmm, what sort of OS's do you have around?


I've had a tiny bit of luck reading a floppy from a Macintosh Performa to my laptop running Debian Linux. But it just plugged in and was read automagically. From there you could transfer it wherever.


Of course that's not Macintosh SE, but it may be similar enough to work.


I was thinking the Pandora might be able to pull it off actually (and would be quite the success story), but I don't know if that has the proper utilities. If not and you don't have another Linux box handy, you could just make a live USB or CD pretty easy and boot into that as a one time thing.

Well, the Performa is newer then the SE. Is the floppy formatted as 400K?

 

[slaeshjag]

Doesn't the Macintosh SE support double sided floppies too? I know mine does.

 

[lhn555]

Doesn't the Macintosh SE support double sided floppies too? I know mine does.

Yeah, it does, but does a normal 1.4" floppy support that?

 

[Wally]

A Mac emu such as Basilisk 2 should help you out here but what are the exact model details of the SE..


SE has 800k support


SE FDHD / SE 30 has 1.44MB Floppy support


Don't use 400 or 800K floppies. Use 1.44MB and format as 800K

 

[Caine]

Just buy a USB floppy reader or build a floppy reader into a spare desktop if you have any.

*facepalm*


I have one, it won't read one formatted like that.

Haha, *facepalm* indeed


I just had a discussion with a novice computer user that afternoon who thought you could no longer use floppies since premade computers typically don't include the drive anymore. I jumped to the wrong conclusion here.


I agree with Wally, Basilisk 2 is worth a try.

 

[hideki]

Hihi


You cannot read a 400K floppy on the PC unless you have a catweasel...


The mac (like the amiga and c64) uses a non-standard disk format that the PC FDC is incapable of reading


You need to find a mac with high density drive, read the files off then write them to a high density disk which you will be able to read on the PC.

 

[TrashyMG]

FYI Catweasel...


I've been considering buying one to archive as much of my old Commodore programs I used to mess with on the old floppies.

 

[lhn555]

Just buy a USB floppy reader or build a floppy reader into a spare desktop if you have any.

*facepalm*


I have one, it won't read one formatted like that.

Haha, *facepalm* indeed


I just had a discussion with a novice computer user that afternoon who thought you could no longer use floppies since premade computers typically don't include the drive anymore. I jumped to the wrong conclusion here.


I agree with Wally, Basilisk 2 is worth a try.

Just tried Basilisk II with no avail.


It doesn't even know that the floppy is there. When I get home today I'll format it as double sided and see what happens.