Mac Classic Floppy disks

I have some files on a floppy disk created on a Mac Classic machine many years ago. Is there any way I get recover these files?

Thanks so much for any help.

If the disks are high density floppies then you might try something like Micropac Technologies USB External 3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive Black SBT-UFDB. There are a number of brands out there that seem to work equally well.

If these disks are double density floppies then most of these drives will not read them properly. Note that the double density disks have one small square hole near each corner of the disk. http://www.frasersales.com/images/ebay/3_5in_double_density_disk_1.jpg.

If these are double density disks, either 800k for Mac or 720k for PC, your best bet is probably to find an older system with a drive that can read these disks.

Welcome to Mac-Forums!

IBM and Toshiba put out a USB floppy drive. Have just run a couple of test disks in my IBM (see att.) and yes, it appears that the 2DD disks don't work, just the HD ones.

Of course the disks are DD (and I have a USB floppy drive which can't read as you mentioned.). Any suggestions where I can find a place with an old Mac? I went to the Apple store and they didn't even have a floppy drive to test it.

You might want to check out Working with Macintosh Floppy Disks in the New Millennium. The author not only explains why those disks cannot be read by other drives but gives his ideas of which Mac models are best for reading those disks.

Most of the vendors that sell older Macs may have some ideas as well along with models that are cheaper. There are probably also individual drives that are still available.

Important Note Some of the older Apply floppy disk drives were referred to as Super Drives. This can cause some confusion since the Apple-supplied DVD burners have been referred to as Super Drives for some time. Make sure the vendor understands that you are looking for the floppy drive.

An Apple museum. Seriously. There are also collectors and hobbyists who've kept old Macs, but you'd need to advertise. You could try the Buy/Sell/Trade section of M-Fs.

Also, search for M-F member Pigoo (Nick), who has a collection of over two dozen Macs. He may be able to assist you.

Useful Link

Slydude said:

You might want to check out Working with Macintosh Floppy Disks in the New Millennium.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link to a very good article.

its really tricky

I recently provided system 7 on floppy disks to a user but it needed 3 computers to do the transfer

My Intel Macbook to download the software from the internet

My Mac SE30 to format the floppies and copy on to them, and to format an old scsi hard drive to HFS (not HFS+ - that was a later disk format)

My G4 mac running OS9 to recognize the older formatted SCSI drive and act as an intermediate between my Intel mac and the old Mac SE30.

So it can be done, but unless you want to post me the floppies here in the UK, or you know someone who has a generation of macs encompassing system 7 to OSX, it may prove difficult.