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bohdanz · Jul 24, 2002, 09:36 PM

I know there are few floppy disk externals out there and wonder do they work under OS X?
I've got lots of old documents on floppies I need to sort through (and then trash forever.)

Thanks.

CRASH HARDDRIVE · Jul 24, 2002, 11:22 PM

You shouldn't have a problem with most any USB floppy external and OSX.

bankmann@mac.com · Jul 31, 2002, 03:58 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE:
You shouldn't have a problem with most any USB floppy external and OSX.<hr /></blockquote>Yes, you would.
Apple's USB floppy-drivers are extremely inefficient.
It takes forever to have the diskette mount on the desktop.
It takes forever to read from or write to the diskette.
It takes halfway to forever to dismount the diskette.
I don't know why Apple's USB flopy drivers are so crappy, but then they don't really support diskettes any more, do they?

I have a La Cie USB diskette drive.
The innards are really made by YE-Data in Japan.
La Cie has (or had) no drivers or information for the drive.
YE- Data told me the driver (Apple's) was present in Mac OS X 10.0.x, it did however not work properly; you had to insert diskette, unplug and replug the drive to mount it.
Under Mac OS X 10.1.x the diskette will automount, but gawd is it ever _slow_...!
Apple still has a lot work to do on basic USB support. (Try pluging a multibutton mouse, gamepad or joystick to your Mac...)

Not that there's no hope. If you are having problems with USB input devices, there's always USB Overdrive.

Bankmann

mrwalker · Jul 31, 2002, 04:44 AM

The usb floppy drive from my girlfriend's Sony Vaio worked by simply pugging it in. No drivers, no reboot, the disk just appeared on the desktop. Which was nice.