How can i backup my old mac floppies to a mordern mac running mac os x (p.s. there 800kb floppies)
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how to backup mac floppies
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I just tried some old floppies in a Windows P4 and one of them turned out be an 800 k. Of course Windows couldn't read the files (they might even have been Atari ST) but it knew they were there. Somehow try and find an external floppy drive for a Mac I guess, or a pre G3 with a drive in it.
You can't. You need some older hardware; the beige G3 being among the last of the OSX capable computers that will suffice for that purpose.
The problem is that you need a variable speed 3-1/2" disk drive. None of the modern USB drives can do that, and the last of the Apple computers that had that capability were the ones with built-in 3-1/2" drives.
See:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/464136/
is there any way that i could use my old external 800kb disk drive on a morden mac or pc
Nope, that 19-pin D-shell would be pretty hard to plug in to anything more modern.
As an aside, there's a nice treatment of Apple floppy drives through history here:
http://www.vintagemacworld.com/drives.html
I posted this in another forum, but I think it applies here too. This was the best way I could find to preserve the data on all my floppies...
"I picked 2 old Zip 100 drives off eBay for a couple of bucks each. One SCSI and another USB. I hooked up the SCSI one to my old Mac SE and using an old Iomega Tools 4.2 driver, I was able to mount the Zip disk on the desktop. I copied the entire contents of my 45M hard drive to the Zip disk. I then loaded the Zip disk onto my Mac Pro using the USB Zip drive. I copied the contents of the Zip disk into a disk image and open it up using Mini vMac. I now have the entire SE hard drive accessible under Mini vMac. It works great the other way too.
I downloaded a ton of free software and games for OS 6 and 7. I also downloaded OS 7.5.5. I then copied the contents of the upgraded Mini vMac OS back onto the Zip disk. I then copied everything back onto the SE's hard drive. It now boots into OS 7.5.5 and has things like MacInTalk and a bunch of cool classic games."
So basically, I backed up all my 800K floppies to a Zip disk. I then loaded the data from the Zip disk onto my Mac Pro. This is all well and good as long as you have an old Mac that can read 800K floppies and has a SCSI port. There is no way to read an 800K floppy on a modern computer.
"I picked 2 old Zip 100 drives off eBay for a couple of bucks each. One SCSI and another USB. I hooked up the SCSI one to my old Mac SE and using an old Iomega Tools 4.2 driver, I was able to mount the Zip disk on the desktop. I copied the entire contents of my 45M hard drive to the Zip disk. I then loaded the Zip disk onto my Mac Pro using the USB Zip drive. I copied the contents of the Zip disk into a disk image and open it up using Mini vMac. I now have the entire SE hard drive accessible under Mini vMac. It works great the other way too.
I downloaded a ton of free software and games for OS 6 and 7. I also downloaded OS 7.5.5. I then copied the contents of the upgraded Mini vMac OS back onto the Zip disk. I then copied everything back onto the SE's hard drive. It now boots into OS 7.5.5 and has things like MacInTalk and a bunch of cool classic games."
So basically, I backed up all my 800K floppies to a Zip disk. I then loaded the data from the Zip disk onto my Mac Pro. This is all well and good as long as you have an old Mac that can read 800K floppies and has a SCSI port. There is no way to read an 800K floppy on a modern computer.