Reading 800k floppies

[svolin]

I have a number of 800k 3 1/2" floppies that i would like to transfer to CD. However, while I am able to read and transfer 1.4M floppies, my computer/disk readers will not recognize the 800k disks.

I am running a Mac Pro Column OSX 10.9.5 and using a Smart FDD drive or a Super Disk Drive to read the floppies,

Does anyone know of either a compatible floppy drive or application that will read these old 80k disks?

Thanks

 

[Slydude]

I think you're going to need an older Mac to do that. Look for one with a built-in floppy drive. AFAIK the third-party usb floppy drives won't read those disks. I think the last models to have those drives were the Beige G3s. Those machines should be pretty cheap though the problem will be that the drives are old enough that they are often failing.

Once you can read the disks you should be able to transfer the files via network, CD, or memory stick depending upon the machine in question.

 

[harryb2448]

Yep an older Mac. Nothing new will read them. It is necessary to have the reader installed as part of the machine's hardware. USB readers will not read them. This is called progress svolin.


[Resolved] Most modern Mac to write to 800K floppies? - MacRumors Forums

 

[chscag]

Harry: I seem to remember an older DOS program or it might be a Windows 3.0 program that allowed the 800K floppies to be read in a 720K low density drive. Maybe if someone did some digging they could find it. The problem is though, low density drives were installed on older IBM PS2 machines and some early Compaqs. Goodness knows where you would be able to find one.