Performa 5260 800k floppy

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Hey Guys,

I have a couple dozen of 800k floppies from late 80's or early 90's I have written on a Macintosh II. Unfortunatelly I can't access this machine anymore but I would like to read the floppies at least. I'm from Hungary and it is really hard to find a working Mac from the era with a capability to read 800k floppies here. I came across with a really good deal. I could buy a Performa 5260 with an internal 1.44 MB floppy drive. I would like to ask you that can I read the 800k formatted disks with this machine?
Thank you so much for your reply!

Regards, Stanley
 

chscag

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Welcome to our forums!

Someone with more knowledge of older Macs will have to answer your question. However, 1.44MB floppy drives that were installed on older PCs could only read 1.44MB and 720K floppies. When IBM came out with their special 2.88MB floppies it required a new drive designed for that format in order to read those super high density floppy disks.

I suspect you would need a special floppy drive designed to read and write to those 800K floppies.
 
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@ Stanley

I'm pretty sure that that Performa 5260 had Apple's "Super Drive" that could read and write to both the old single sided and the newer HD double sided floppy disks but it sounds like you don't have much choice but to try it and see.
BTW: The external third party USB drives cannot read the old single sided floppies.

These specs here aren't too clear for that Mac model:
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_performa/specs/mac_performa_5260cd.html#macspecs2
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac/specs/powermac_5260_100.html

PS: It's not just the file reading and recovery that's just part of the problem, you'll also need the applications and/or translators to open and save the files and their data.

I did just that a few years ago for a lady to rescue the stories her husband had written and saved to old Mac DOS and other old formatted floppys, but he had died, and it took me ages and different OS versions. But I eventually got them all saved!!!

Good luck.

PPS: you may be better off if you could locate someone who could do the rescue/translate for you and pay them.





- Patrick
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The 5260 was my second Mac purchased new because OS 7.6.1 was designed for the 'net. That 800MB was huge after the 128MB of my LC original. Floppies that could be used on the 5260 were the standard 1.44MB. These models were popular with MUG members as CDs could be burnt with stacks of programs on them. The original OS was 7.5.3 which came on a CD. Diwn Under they were a 'special' with schools and branded as the Performa 5260 CD.
 
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These models were popular with MUG members as CDs could be burnt with stacks of programs on them.

Oh right!! The great various MUG's DOMs (Disk Of the Month) disks. And I think I may still have some shoeboxes full of them somewhere. :Blushing:


EDIT:
This may be useful to the OP:
Apple SuperDrive floppy drives use a variable speed motor, making them compatible with 400K and 800K floppy disks – as long as the operating system also supports them.

Any Mac with a built-in floppy drive introduced since September 1988 has an FDHD, and the March 1987 Mac SE and Mac II may have been updated for FDHD as well. Every version of the Classic Mac OS from System 3 through 9.2.2 can read, write, and format 800K and 1.4 MB floppy disks as long as the mechanism is an Apple FDHD or a third-party Mac-compatible drive with a variable speed motor.

Macs with high-density Apple floppy drives and System 3 through Mac OS 9.2.2 support formatting 1.4 MB floppy disks.

And more at: Floppy Disk Compatibility and Incompatibility in the Mac World | Low End Mac








- Patrick
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IWT


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And because no one has said it yet, your command of English is very commendable. Thank you.

Ian
 

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Wow...got to shake out the cobwebs for this one! Lol

Want to share a bit of info I learned way way back when floppy disks were commonplace...and in the years since then. I've found that as the mechanical floppy drive mechanisms age...they can be very temperamental. What I mean by temperamental is...floppy disks formatted & then written to with the same floppy drive usually work fine...but take floppy disks formatted and/or written to with a different flopppy drive (floppy drive A)...may not work so well in floppy drive B.

As a floppy drive age's (is used)...the alignment of the floppy drive read/write head changes in alignment. Thus a floppy disk written to from one floppy drive...may not work so well in another floppy drive in another computer.

A 2nd issue with old magnetic floppy disks is...they can be very very prone to degradation. Basically the magnetic floppy disk media degrades over time...and when someone attempts to use an old floppy disk...the drive may not beable to read it...or you get lots of errors.

In this case all you can do is get a computer with an operable floppy drive...and hope for the best. But if errors are encountered...it could be due to worn mechanical drive mechanisms not able to read the disk properly...or the floppy disk media itself has degradated to the point that the disk is unreadable.

Good luck,

- Nick
 

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