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Bought a G4 Powermac and need some help with Imation Superdisk Drive...

TheGeneralLee86

TheGeneralLee86

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 7, 2014
99
6
West Topsham, VT
I just bought a G4 Powermac DA 733Mhz 128MB ATI Radeon Graphics 2 HDDs 60GB + 20GB 1.5GB RAM , Apple Studio Display, Apple ADC to DVI adapters cause it only has DVI VGA S-Video Out on it. The Imation Superdisk Drive shows up in Disk Utility but nowhere else and can't get it to mount so I can open the disk and format it so I can read it as a floppy?
 
TheGeneralLee86 said:
I just bought a G4 Powermac DA 733Mhz 128MB ATI Radeon Graphics 2 HDDs 60GB + 20GB 1.5GB RAM , Apple Studio Display, Apple ADC to DVI adapters cause it only has DVI VGA S-Video Out on it. The Imation Superdisk Drive shows up in Disk Utility but nowhere else and can't get it to mount so I can open the disk and format it so I can read it as a floppy?
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I'm not exactly sure what you're asking.
Are you referring to the Zip drive? G4s don't have floppies.
 
It is a USB drive that reads/writes regular 1.44MB Mac floppies as well as Imation 120MB SuperDisks. I am trying to figure out how to get it to show up so I can format the disks so I can write Macintosh floppy images to them to read on my Macintosh Classic and Classic II machines which read and write 1.44 Macintosh floppies which are the only ones I am looking to do. I know you can't do the 700 or 800k disks with it.
 
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TheGeneralLee86 said:
It is a USB drive that reads/writes regular 1.44MB Mac floppies as well as Imation 120MB SuperDisks. I am trying to figure out how to get it to show up so I can format the disks so I can write Macintosh floppy images to them to read on my Macintosh Classic and Classic II machines which read and write 1.44 Macintosh floppies which are the only ones I am looking to do. I know you can't do the 700 or 800k disks with it.
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I see. What OS are you using?
I don't own a USB floppy drive unfortunately. Does it read any floppies you have? If not, can you plug it into another computer, even a PC?
 
I was able to erase and format in disk utilities and rebooted into OS9 and that detected it but always gives a weird error of some data may have been lost or something like that.
 
Have you tested the drive with other computers?

I have had several of these. They were popular accessories for the Bondi iMacs as well as the B&W, graphite, and Quicksilver towers(and I have them in colors to match all of these).

My experience in 10.3 is limited, but they've always worked flawlessly for me in OS 8.6, OS 9, 10.4, and 10.5. That includes reading Mac and Windows formatted floppies and LS-120 disks.

As maybe a stupid question, and forgive me if you have done this, but the USB external LS 120s I've seen(which were all dressed up to match Macs but I'm guessing would work with anything) have a separate wall wart type power supply. Do you have this and have it plugged in?
 
Yes the power is plugged into the wall. No Just the G4 Powermac I have, I also have 4 others I could try it on but they are all PCs of about the same era or a bit older with USB, I don't have any other Macs other then my Classic and Classic II.
 
Wouldn't surprise me if it's an issue with dirty heads.

A standard floppy cleaning disk should do it. I'm not intimately familiar with the inner workings of these drives, even though I used them on my PCs back in the day. IIRC, they're a type of "floptical" disk, but use ultra-tight/high density magnetic tracks and laser alignment at least on the 120mb disks.

Out of curiosity, have tried an LS-120 disk, or just a standard floppy disk?
 
Just standard floppy cause I don't have any LS-120 Disks to use. Yeah that's what I was thinking cause it seems to get better the more I use and have only been using with blank floppies cause I don't want to ruin any floppies I have with stuff on them. I can open the floppy on the desktop now but takes a while.
 
Not that this is something you can find easily now outside of trolling Ebay for one, but I really suspect a floppy cleaning disk might do you a lot of good.

It's unfortunate that LS-120 never got a strong foothold, as IMO it had some distinct advantages over ZIP. Back in the day, I never used ZIP, but generally would put an LS-120 in my computer instead of a floppy. Macs never really embraced LS-120. Internal ZIP drives were an option for Mac towers, and in fact I have one installed in the MP 1,1 that I use to use as an office computer. I never could get internal LS-120s to work in towers, although I do have one that fits a Lombard/Pismo CD bay.
 
TheGeneralLee86 said:
I can open the floppy on the desktop now but takes a while.
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I mean on MacOS 9 still can't see them or open them on OS X

Edited: Just noticed in disk utilities it shows up as HDD not Floppy Disk?

I was wondering could it be because this machine has been restored with restore discs for an emac? (not by me by who I bought it from)
 
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so i double checked my imation with my mac, and yes, 1.4 mb floppies in 10.5.8 show up as writable hard drives. after looking at it in disk utility trying to grab information about it, it crashed my mac.

right now as i write this i am logging into 9.2.2 to see what it says. it mounts as a regular floppy and system profiler says its an e-usb bridge controller.

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reddrag0n said:
so i double checked my imation with my mac, and yes, 1.4 mb floppies in 10.5.8 show up as writable hard drives. after looking at it in disk utility trying to grab information about it, it crashed my mac.

right now as i write this i am logging into 9.2.2 to see what it says. it mounts as a regular floppy and system profiler says its an e-usb bridge controller.

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My OS X is the 10.3.5 and My OS 9 is 9.1 not the 9.2.2 I believe this machine is suppose to have. With your OS X Pics Mine does not show anything other then the 1.4 MB MATSHITA LS-120 part and no drop down with Untitled Disk. In My 9.1 Which I am trying now... and also doesn't even show it with USB logo like that just regular internal HDD icon.
 
So I updated to 9.2.2 for it and installed the drivers and it helped and then went back to what it was doing before I'm starting think it is dirty so I ordered some Cleaning 3.5 Diskette for it and also ordered a 5.25 Cleaning diskette as well for my 386 and my commodore 64 computers.
 
I just opened it up and looked inside and the heads move back and forth but the disk doesn't spin at all.
I know this because when I eject the disk the back side of the the floppy disk where you see the round metal piece with the 2 holes is in the same place as when I put it in.
 
Well he sent me a replacement and that one works flawlessly though I can't test to make sure the SuperDisks themselves work as well though cause I don't have any to try.
 
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