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hyslop · Jan 31, 2004, 04:13 PM

I just bought a new imac with 10.3. I saved a few files onto floppy disks and would now like to open these files. I've got a disk drive and when I put the disk in I get a message that says OS X can't read it. How can I read these files? Do I have to go back to my old computer and save them some other way? Is the stuff lost forever?

John

CharlesS · Jan 31, 2004, 04:46 PM

Look at the top corners of the floppy disk. Do both corners have a hole through them, or is there only one?

larkost · Jan 31, 2004, 08:57 PM

What CharlesS is getting at is that MacOS X does not support 800k floppy disks (or the old 400k either), only 1.44MB. It will understand he 8.6 files just fine, it is the disk it is probably chocking on.

Powaqqatsi · Feb 1, 2004, 04:47 AM

Also try to unlock the floppy if it is locked. I remember back in the day that I had some problems with locked disks from time to time, they wouldn't mount.. And if I unlocked them they worked perfectly. (That was in pre-OS9 days mind you)

hyslop · Feb 1, 2004, 09:13 AM

It is a 1.44mb floppy that's unlocked. The message I get after the disk drive finishes reading the disk is "You have inserted a disk containing no volumes that Mac OS X can read. To continue with the disk inserted click ignore." On other disk that I've inserted, after the disk has been read, I get no response. The drive doesn't appear on the desktop, is that normal?

John

RooneyX · Feb 1, 2004, 09:37 AM

Best bet is to send the files over a network or use another medium if that floppy isn't reading properly.

CharlesS · Feb 1, 2004, 11:41 AM

Sounds like the floppy drive you're using with the iMac may be problematic if it's failing to read multiple disks that all work fine in the other machine.

Does your old computer have an Ethernet port or a FireWire port? If so, you could transfer the files that way.

Charles

Mr. Blur · Feb 1, 2004, 01:17 PM

another possibility is that while it may be a 1.44mb floppy, it got formatted in an 800k drive. try putting a piece of tape over the hole (not the lock/unlock one) *carefully* (so that it does not overlap the side of the disk which may cause it to get stuck in the drive)....see if it reads then.

but as charles said, if the drive has problems with all disks, then it is the drive that is the problem.

CharlesS · Feb 1, 2004, 09:40 PM

Originally posted by Mr. Blur:
another possibility is that while it may be a 1.44mb floppy, it got formatted in an 800k drive. try putting a piece of tape over the hole (not the lock/unlock one) *carefully* (so that it does not overlap the side of the disk which may cause it to get stuck in the drive)....see if it reads then.

If the older Mac was running 8.6, it didn't have an 800K drive.

I say it's the iMac's drive.

Brass · Feb 1, 2004, 09:50 PM

Does the floppy read okay again in the original drive with which it was written?

Moonray · Feb 2, 2004, 12:43 AM

First make sure that your floppy disks and drive(s) are okay. Check that by re-reading what you have written on the same computer multiple times. You should not get this error on a formatted 1.44 MB disk if the filestructure is okay, nor should you get different errors so if you have a very old drive there, let it read/write a few floppies that often cleans the head a bit.

If that works you might run into a problem if you use DOS formatted disks and your files have resource forks. OS 8.6 saves the resource forks if there are any in a special folder while OS X puts them in a file on the same level as the data file and OS X does not know anything about that other format (why would Apple want to be backward compatible to their own stuff

).
Then your options are either to compress your files with something that preserves the resource fork (Stuffit...), to format your floppy disks in HFS, use a network connection, or to puzzle the forks together again.

-

hyslop · Feb 2, 2004, 12:21 PM

Thanks for the replies and advice. I solved the problem and didn't use the drive or the disks at all (most of those responses were way over my head technically). RoneyX clued me into the solution with his advice of sending the files over a network. I signed up for a free trial of .Mac, downloaded Goliath from webdav.org onto my old computer and transferred the files through .Mac. Everything worked perfectly.
Thanks again.

john