Floppy Disk readable drive for Macs

[klpribula93]

Hi all!

I have a quick question for you.

My grandfather recently passed due to cancerous tumors this past december, among other health issues he's been dealing with for about 3 years. My family and I are in the process of helping my 90-year old grandmother sell her house and we're currently going through some of their belongings and inheriting some of my grandfather's belongings as well. I inherited my grandfather's floppy disk which has a lot of our precious family photos. I looked on Amazon for some external floppy disk drives where I can hook the adapter up to either my '27 inch iMac 2019 5k Retina or my 2019 Macbook Pro. I'm hesitant to purchase some of the floppy disk drives that are advertised on Amazon because after reading reviews, a lot of them aren't compatible with Macs and a lot of them are saying that it was not releasing the floppy disks which I don't want to damage. My grandfather has maybe a little over 50 some floppy disks that I have to go through and look at.

Neither of my family uses a PC anymore. I am hoping one of you can lead me into the right direction into buying a good one. I'm still processing this grief (my grandmother did not want to hold a funeral around the time of his passing due to COVID, and she was moving into an independent living home and having her 90th birthday all at the same time this was happening) so looking through the floppy disks that he has, will give me a sense of closure and some comfort. And honestly, I didn't know he has kept all of these floppy disks that he labled which has our family photos. (My grandfather is a man of many surprises so I'm constantly in awe and surprised by him everyday). I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to my grandfather since I live about 2 hours away from home and his passing happened so fast (he was in and out of the hospital a lot last year and couldn't see him much due to COVID restrictions as well). So If any of you can help, I would SO appreciate this. Thanks all!

 

[artfossil]

Why not use a floppy disk conversion service? You could get an online quotes and then make a decision.

 

[jparker402]

Besides the question of a drive, aren't you also going to have to find software compatible with whatever was used to store the images on the floppy disks? Wondering if it would be easier to try to find a used version of the entire set-up your grandfather used.

 

[Silencio]

I still have a very old USB 3.5" floppy drive. I used to use it to read my own late Grandfather's disks.

You may need to go on eBay and find something. Try to look for brands that had a history of Mac support like LaCie or MacAlly.

 

[wordsworth]

Sorry for your loss.

You would probably need to know what era of computing your grandfather's PC was from, to begin with, and to help avoid unhelpful expense.

They will presumably be Windows-compatible files on the floppy disks. What version of Windows, I wonder? DO you have any idea what your grandfather's computer was (model) or when he got it?

As jparker402 suggests, the files will need to be read by another computer that can 'translate' them; moving them across to the Mac will pose a challenge (though should be entirely possible) and compatible software will be an important factor. (A lot has changed in Operating System and software terms in the Mac world, even with our current Macs.)

Instead, do you know anyone with an old PC who might be able to help out? I would guess that the floppies will require a much older Mac (for the potential software compatibility) to be able to read and 'translate' the floppies' files, so an older Windows-PC might be a better, somewhat easier method to do this.

I'd be surprised if your 2019 Macs and a plug-in floppy drive would achieve very much, if anything, of what you want.

I take it you only have the floppies and not what they were created on?

Do you know anyone with an old (original) iMac from the early 2000s?

 

[Janichsan]

If the floppies are DOS/Windows formatted, any USB floppy drive will do. Even modern macOS versions support the drives out of the box and can at least read the file system (source: the $30 USB 3.5" floppy drive on my desk).

Things get more complicated when these floppies are in the old 400/800 kB Mac format (or the 880/1720 kB Amiga format), as you need drives with special controllers for these.

 

[AJK13K]

If you are near a big electronics store like b&h or Best Buy…. Take 1 disk to the store and try it on a demo machine. Or as above use a conversions service.

 

[ratsg]

I'd keep searching on Amazon, or your favorite Apple HW vendor for something that states Mac compatibility.

Do you have any idea what-so-ever what format those floppies might be in?

In contrary to other comments, I've be hesitant about letting others touch those floppies, and I'd only let someone touch them that I specifically trusted. Floppies are/were a volatile media, and that doesn't improve any with age.

Assuming 3.5" floppy media, I would set the physical "write" tab in the upper corner of the floppy, so that nothing can write/over-write the data that is there.

I don't mean to make this into a bigger deal than it is, we're just talking about floppies, but take care of them till you successfully get the data you need off of them, i.e. temperature, moisture, magnets, etc.

 

[klpribula93]

Sorry for your loss.

You would probably need to know what era of computing your grandfather's PC was from, to begin with, and to help avoid unhelpful expense.

They will presumably be Windows-compatible files on the floppy disks. What version of Windows, I wonder? DO you have any idea what your grandfather's computer was (model) or when he got it?

As jparker402 suggests, the files will need to be read by another computer that can 'translate' them; moving them across to the Mac will pose a challenge (though should be entirely possible) and compatible software will be an important factor. (A lot has changed in Operating System and software terms in the Mac world, even with our current Macs.)

Instead, do you know anyone with an old PC who might be able to help out? I would guess that the floppies will require a much older Mac (for the potential software compatibility) to be able to read and 'translate' the floppies' files, so an older Windows-PC might be a better, somewhat easier method to do this.

I'd be surprised if your 2019 Macs and a plug-in floppy drive would achieve very much, if anything, of what you want.

I take it you only have the floppies and not what they were created on?

Do you know anyone with an old (original) iMac from the early 2000s?

I'd keep searching on Amazon, or your favorite Apple HW vendor for something that states Mac compatibility.

Do you have any idea what-so-ever what format those floppies might be in?

In contrary to other comments, I've be hesitant about letting others touch those floppies, and I'd only let someone touch them that I specifically trusted. Floppies are/were a volatile media, and that doesn't improve any with age.

Assuming 3.5" floppy media, I would set the physical "write" tab in the upper corner of the floppy, so that nothing can write/over-write the data that is there.

I don't mean to make this into a bigger deal than it is, we're just talking about floppies, but take care of them till you successfully get the data you need off of them, i.e. temperature, moisture, magnets, etc.

Honestly, I have no idea what kind of PC computers my grandfather owned, when I was growing up. The only computer I've seen him use most recently, was a Dell laptop, and I'm not even sure if his Dell laptop had a floppy disk drive inside the computer. It probably did but I'm not sure if that computer is still around. I'm not even sure what kind of model that laptop is.

I've asked around and nobody really has an older PC that would be able to potentially read these floppy disks. However, I did remember that I still have my 2012 MacBook pro, that coincidentally, my grandfather bought for me when I graduated high school. I was going to sell it, but I never got around to selling it. It's still workable, but I can't remember exactly what OS my 2012 MacBook Pro is running on. I also still have my 2015 MacBook pro. I asked my Uncle for some help in this Floppy disk adventure, and he sent me a link to a floppy hard drive disk that would hopefully work, and is supposedly compatible for Macs. My Uncle works in IT. So he reccommended me to try this out: Tendak USB floppy Disk If my 2019 Macs does not work, I might try and give my older macs a try. I may ask work (I work in higher ed as a creative designer/photographer/videographer) and see if they can also maybe help out with an older computer. My IT department at the college I work at, hates working with Macs mainly beacuse the security on the Macs are so high that it's hard for them to get some things working under the college's network. They mainly prefer PCs/Windows computer so I may ask them.

I am hesitant to bring it in somewhere for people to look at. I would much rather keep them in my hands since these are important to the family, etc. I ordered the Tendak USB 3.0 floppy disk drive on amazon, to which my uncle recommended and it is supposedly arriving to my apartment by end of day tomorrow. I haven't gotten the notification from Amazon yet that it's shipping. I live in a small town in Ohio, so the nearest Best buy store is an hour away from me, including Apple.

Still keeping my fingers crossed for a miracle!

Edit: I should probabably also mention that a lot of the floppy disks are 1.44MB. After just looking at the disks, physically, it looks like his favorite floppy disks brand was imation. Not sure if that would be any helpful information!

 

[ratsg]

So he reccommended me to try this out: Tendak USB floppy Disk If my 2019 Macs does not work, I might try and give my older macs a try. I may ask work (I work in higher ed as a creative designer/photographer/videographer) and see if they can also maybe help out with an older computer.

Not that you need some random guy from the Internet's approval, but I also think that the Tendak USB floppy is a good choice, and the price is right.

It not only states Mac compatibility, but also has a comment stating to please reach out for assistance if you encounter any problems.

Fingers crossed for you that you are able to successfully recover your family pictures.

 

[klpribula93]

Not that you need some random guy from the Internet's approval, but I also think that the Tendak USB floppy is a good choice, and the price is right.

It not only states Mac compatibility, but also has a comment stating to please reach out for assistance if you encounter any problems.

Fingers crossed for you that you are able to successfully recover your family pictures.

No, I'm glad someone else also agreed that it was a good choice! I stopped by my work's IT department, and they also agreed that it would be a good one. They also mentioned that if the adapter doesn't work with my computers, they would try and help. I just wanted to make sure I was purchasing a good one, and one that will actually work with Macs too!

Definately fingers crossed that I'll be able to read these disks and access family photos! I'm curious to see what are on there. A lot of these photos that he has taken, my family and I have never seen before. So I'm definitely anxious to see if this whole project will work. My only concern is after reading some of the comments on Amazon, some people had issues trying to get the adapter to release the floppy disks and end up ruining the disks. So I'm hoping it wont come to that too.

 

[KaliYoni]

I work in higher ed

Some random thoughts, in addition to what others have said:

• I wouldn't insert those disks into any computer or machine that is publicly accessible, especially if there is irreplaceable data on them. Retail store and library computers are particularly risky both for security and for potentially damaging the disks physically.
• If you work at a college or university, I think you have a lot of potential help easily at hand. In addition to the IT staff, there's gotta be a least a couple of people among faculty and students who have a machine that can read your floppies.
• I own an old Sony 3.5" USB floppy drive that came with a Vaio laptop. I haven't done this for awhile but the last time I hooked it up to one of my Macs, I was able to read and write non-macOS disks without any problems. I may have even used it with a PlayStation 3 to look at photographs on a TV. In either case, it probably would have been easy to copy files from a floppy to a USB thumb drive.

 

[darngooddesign]

To avoid stress from possibly damaging the floppies, I second the idea of using a service which will burn the contents of the floppies onto a thumb drive or CD.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"he reccommended me to try this out: Tendak USB floppy Disk If my 2019 Macs does not work, I might try and give my older macs a try."

I looked at the amazon page for that drive, and it says:
"Powered directly from the USB port, and no external power required.USB 1.1/2.0 is compatible. DON'T SUPPORT USB 3.0. If it is a desktop computer, please plug it into the back USB port of the case"

Not sure whether this could be a problem or not.
Just about all Macs "newer than" 2011 (i.e., 2012 and later) have USB3 ports.
For USB2, you'd need something 2011 or earlier.

Still, at only $22, that drive could be "worth a try", even if you have to dig up an older Mac with which to use it. Then again, it might work fine with a Mac USB3 port.

Another thing to consider -- does it need any software drivers?
Perhaps not, the Mac OS is good about this, but then again... something to be aware of.

Also be aware that the drive reads only 720k and 1.44mb disks, which indicates that it probably can't support Mac-formatted 800k or 1.4mb floppies (I think).
But since your grandfather used a PC (not a Mac), this shouldn't be a problem.

If you have a pile of floppies to go through, when you get the drive, I'd suggest you try it with something "non-critical" first.

If you can get the drive mounted on the desktop, you'll need another drive (or folder, etc.) to serve as the "receptacle" for the transferred files.

The first priority would be:
- get the data from the floppies into another format.
Then...
- see if the data can be opened, converted, etc.

In any case, please come back and update us as to how things go.
Seems like an interesting story...!

 

[darngooddesign]

OP wrote:
"he reccommended me to try this out: Tendak USB floppy Disk If my 2019 Macs does not work, I might try and give my older macs a try."

I looked at the amazon page for that drive, and it says:
"Powered directly from the USB port, and no external power required.USB 1.1/2.0 is compatible. DON'T SUPPORT USB 3.0. If it is a desktop computer, please plug it into the back USB port of the case"

Not sure whether this could be a problem or not.
Just about all Macs "newer than" 2011 (i.e., 2012 and later) have USB3 ports.
For USB2, you'd need something 2011 or earlier.

You would think a USB-C to USB-A adapter should work.

 

[Arctic Moose]

I think you made the right choice buying a brand-new drive.

I recently rescued a stack of old disks that haven’t been used since the nineties, both Mac and PC, using one of these connected to my Mac:

Fujitsu USB Floppy Disk Drive FPCFDD12

Fujitsu USB Floppy Disk Drive FPCFDD12

www.amazon.com

When each disk mounted I used Disk Utility to make an image of it, and then used the image to sort through the contents. Only two or three disks of about 30 were unreadable.

 

[klpribula93]

All, I have some good news. The Tendak floppy drive off of amazon worked with my computer! Even better news — The floppy disks that I inherited from my grandfather, is readable, able to copy, and move things over to an external harddrive on my 2019 "27 iMac Desktop!! Holy moly, never have I ever been this anxious before to see if these floppy disks are even readable! I was able to see a lot of these files on the floppy disks on the new floppy drive I ordered off of amazon. I'm still even surprised and shocked that I'm even able to see these files on my 2019 iMac desktop. My iMac desktop is running Monterey. So far, I have not had any disks that are unreadable *knock on wood*. I was able to go through two storage cases of floppy disks, and I have about 2-3 cases more to go through. Hopefully the other disks are readable. So far, out of the other two cases I went through — my grandfather only had two empty floppy disks to which he did not use. I was able to recover a lot of christmas photos, some photos of cocktail parties that they attended, work friend photos, birthday photos, and some other random photos like our family's lake house renovations and some garden photos. My grandpa favorite hobby was to garden, so he would literally take photos of his garden. My grandparents were even a part of a local garden club.

The one thing I noticed though is that sometimes the floppy disks doesn't like to go all the way in the floppy drive. So I would have to nudge the floppy disk in the drive a little bit further and then I would get a still standing light from the floppy drive which tells me it's reading it and it pops up on my computer. But other than that, I'm having some really great luck right now in seeing these photos. My only hurdle now is to figure out how to open a .HLG, .SWH and a .WPD file on my Mac computers. My grandfather was a scientist and an engineer, so he definitely has some files that are related to his career. Any ideas on how to open those files?

Anyways, I should take a break from looking at these floppy disks and eat some lunch. I'm working remotely from home today, not feeling well. But the floppy disk adventures has definitely made me feel better!

Thanks!

 

[ratsg]

My only hurdle now is to figure out how to open a .HLG, .SWH and a .WPD file on my Mac computers. My grandfather was a scientist and an engineer, so he definitely has some files that are related to his career. Any ideas on how to open those files?

.wpd == word perfect document

.hlg == I was going to guess Harvard Graphics file, but duckduckgo consistantly states Hybrid Log Gamma file:: see https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/hdr-workflows.html

still trying to figure out the .swh

good luck, and contrats on the quick+easy recovery of those floppies!

 

[Janichsan]

I looked at the amazon page for that drive, and it says:
"Powered directly from the USB port, and no external power required.USB 1.1/2.0 is compatible. DON'T SUPPORT USB 3.0. If it is a desktop computer, please plug it into the back USB port of the case"

There's obviously something lost in translation. USB is always backwards compatible to previous versions of the standard, i.e. you can plug an USB 2.0 drive in an USB 3.0 port and it will work. That is one of the core tenets of the USB standard.

What you won't get are USB 3.0 speeds though, which is what this means.

Another thing to consider -- does it need any software drivers?

As you already assumed, not on macOS. Unlike Windows 10, macOS surprisingly still comes with drivers for floppy drives.

 

[Janichsan]

.hlg == I was going to guess Harvard Graphics file, but duckduckgo consistantly states Hybrid Log Gamma file:: see https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/hdr-workflows.html

On an floppy disk together with WordPerfect files from probably the late 1980s/early 1990s? Doubtful. More likely HP-GL files from that same era.
https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/hdr-workflows.html

still trying to figure out the .swh

Doesn't ring a bell for me as well, but it will be something from the same time period (around 1990ish).

 

[ratsg]

On an floppy disk together with WordPerfect files from probably the late 1980s/early 1990s? Doubtful. More likely HP-GL files from that same era.
https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/hdr-workflows.html

Doesn't ring a bell for me as well, but it will be something from the same time period (around 1990ish).

late '80-early 1990's? Word Perfect is still around.

without the files, no one knows 100%, I was just plugging file extensions into an Internet search engine, then sharing what was the prevalent/majority search return.

 

[ratsg]

There's obviously something lost in translation. USB is always backwards compatible to previous versions of the standard, i.e. you can plug an USB 2.0 drive in an USB 3.0 port and it will work. That is one of the core tenets of the USB standard.

What you won't get are USB 3.0 speeds though, which is what this means.


As you already assumed, not on macOS. Unlike Windows 10, macOS surprisingly still comes with drivers for floppy drives.

Thank you for posting that. The USB 3 comments were throwing me off also.

 

[klpribula93]

.wpd == word perfect document

.hlg == I was going to guess Harvard Graphics file, but duckduckgo consistantly states Hybrid Log Gamma file:: see https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/hdr-workflows.html

still trying to figure out the .swh

good luck, and contrats on the quick+easy recovery of those floppies!

On an floppy disk together with WordPerfect files from probably the late 1980s/early 1990s? Doubtful. More likely HP-GL files from that same era.
https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/hdr-workflows.html

Doesn't ring a bell for me as well, but it will be something from the same time period (around 1990ish).

I have access to all Adobe creative suite. So I would open a .hlg file in Premiere? Is it more like a video file?

Still a bit confused on how I would open these files. ?

 

[KaliYoni]

.SWH

Could be a SmartWhois archive file (wow, that is truly old school...reminds me of stuff like FTP and when it was simple to do trace routes and pings in macOS):

IP Address and Domain Lookup - SmartWhois - Saving Results

----------
ETA: if the person who made the floppies was a biomedical engineer, there are some indications online that .hlg is associated with files from the BioMolecular Engineering Research Center at a US university (BMERC Homolog Format Data).

 

[NoBoMac]

^^This re: biomedical research. Which then leads to swh maybe:

The Science Writing Heuristic approach, which was co-developed in 1998 by Brian Hand, a science education professor at the University of Iowa’s College of Education, offers educators a new way to teach that transforms the science classroom and changes the way students think.

Which might have come from some outline-like software and their proprietary format that has long disappeared.