How To Use A Floppy Disk Reader For Mac

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2007: One of the biggest hassles of the vintage Macintosh hobby is loading software onto your first older Mac. To get that vintage Mac up-and-running, you need to be able to write downloaded software onto disks that an older Mac can read. And that’s what we’ll talk about: Free tools for writing Mac floppy disks and HFS CD-ROMs using modern Mac, Windows, and Linux computers.

For the time being, the only practical solutions is to find a working Macintosh with a floppy drive to copy the files onto another floppy (HD) or another medium. MacDisk Features MacDisk manages the Macintosh signatures and adds a corresponding extension to the files copied from the Mac to the PC. Feb 13, 2013  Reader Kristie wrote in with this puzzler: 'I just found a shoebox full of 3.5-inch disks.

Floppy Disk Images

Installing System 6 or System 7.0.1 onto an older Mac is only possible using floppy disks, and the first step to installing System 7.5 is usually “boot from a floppy”. These floppies are distilled into disk images you can download from the Web. When written to a floppy, these images create exact copies of the master disks.

Due to physical differences between Mac and PC floppy drives, 800K double density Mac floppies can only be written by other vintage Macs. This means that boot disks for a Mac 128K, 512K, 512Ke, Plus, pre-FDHD SE, or un-upgraded Mac II cannot be made on a Mac OS X, Linux, or Windows machine. (All other vintage Macs have a 1.4 MB SuperDrive or FDHD [Floppy Disk, High Density] floppy drive, which is compatible with modern computers.)

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StuffIt Expander

Many sources of Mac floppy disk images distribute them in StuffIt (.sit) format. Before these disk images can be written onto real floppy disks, they must be decompressed with StuffIt Expander. This free program is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux/i386.

If StuffIt Expander isn’t available, attempt to find the necessary disk image in uncompressed Disk Copy 4.2 format. These will be immediately useful without any decompression.

I’m currently cooking up some Mac boot floppies that will make installing System software a breeze. I hope to make them available soon using Disk Copy 4.2 format for maximum cross-platform convenience.

Writing a Floppy Disk from an Image

Classic Mac OS

With Mac OS 9 and earlier, just use Disk Copy 6.3.3, which you can freely download from Apple. From the Utilities menu, choose Make a Floppy… and follow the directions onscreen.

Windows

The Windows utility Rawrite can be used to write image files to a floppy using a PC. Put the disk image file and Rawrite into drive C, open a DOS window, type C:Rawrite, and follow the directions. For more information, read this FreeDOS page.

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Linux

Linux users can use the “dd” command to write floppies from image files. If the image file is a raw image, a simple “dd if=path_to_image_file of=path_to_floppy_drive” will do the trick. For a DiskCopy image, “dd if=path_to_image_file of=path_to_floppy_drive bs=84 skip=1” is the right way, according to The pickle’s Low-End Mac FAQ.

Mac OS X

At this time, I am not aware of a good, user-friendly way to write floppies from disk images using Mac OS X. Highly advanced users will probably be able to connect a USB floppy drive, determine its device node, and use the method outlined above for Unix-like systems.

Readers with further information are encouraged to email their stories or techniques so we can update this article.

The Mac’s HFS File System

Before we talk about how to burn CDs for older Macs, it’s important to understand why it’s sometimes difficult. It has to do with the way the Mac stores its files using the HFS file system.

A Macintosh file has two “forks” inside it, the Data Fork and the Resource Fork. The Data Fork is like a file on any other computer system, and it’s where universal data (like MP3 songs, JPEG pictures, and plain text) reside. The Resource Fork is a special part that other computers lack. It stores various objects (such as icons, window and menu definitions, and sounds) and helps to make the Mac a Mac.

With the right software, it’s possible to teach other computer systems about the Mac’s resource fork; I don’t consider it to be worth the effort.

We’ll focus on how to burn HFS CDs containing data-only files, such as Internet downloads. It’s much more sensible to let the older Mac decode them itself than to try to do it on a modern computer.

Burning HFS CD-ROMs

Classic Mac OS

The Classic Mac OS makes this easy – every CD burning application has an obvious “HFS” format option. It’s usually the default choice. Even the built-in Disc Burner that comes with Mac OS 9 can make HFS CDs that work with System 7 Macs.

Mac OS X

Mac OS X speaks HFS, though it has mostly abandoned it for the newer HFS+ format. To burn a System 7-compatible HFS CD in OS X, first create a new disk image using Disk Utility. Select it in the left-side list and click on the Erase tab. Choose Mac OS Standard from the Volume Format dropdown and click the Erase button.

Now copy the files of your choice onto the disk image. When you’re done, unmount the disk image by selecting it and choosing Eject. Enter Disk Utility again and use the Burn Image command to create an HFS-formatted CD readable by all old Macs.

Update: This article was written before OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. It and later versions of OS X cannot create disk images compatible with vintage Macs, although they can burn CDs from existing compatible disk images. OS X 10.5 Leopard and earlier can create compatible disk images.

Windows

Windows can create HFS CDs using free software called HFVExplorer. Although the program’s homepage seems to have gone offline, you can find it on archive.org. Once you’ve unpacked the software, choose New Image from the File menu. Name your image file and choose an appropriate size.

HFVExplorer’s user interface is modeled after Windows Explorer, so it’s easy to copy the files of your choice onto the CD image. Once you’ve copied the files, quit HFVExplorer. Change the .DSK filename extension to .ISO and write it to CD using your favorite CD burning application.

Linux

The Linux utility mkisofs (from the cdrtools package) has options to create HFS CDs. The easiest way to master your CD begins with putting all the files into a directory. The command “mkisofs -hfs -magic -o mac_cd.iso directory” will create an HFS CD image in mac_cd.iso. Then you can burn the .iso file in the standard way. Read “man mkisofs” for more information on the many advanced options.

Conclusion

With this information, nearly any modern computer can be used to write floppy disks and burn HFS CDs for use with a vintage Mac. Internet downloads can open a new vista of usefulness for these older Macs.

Buy some floppy disks or warm up your CD burner and get ready to put those old machines to good use.

Keywords: #makemacfloppies #burnmaccds

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Earlier today in the Apple Macintosh Enthusiasts Facebook group, Charles Lott asked if an OS X Mac with a USB floppy drive could write disks that a Mac running System 7 could use. The short answer is, it depends.

400K Disks

The original Mac floppy disk format was MFS, for Macintosh File System, and it is only used for 400K single-sided floppies – the only kind of floppy drive supported by the original Macintosh, the Mac 512K Fat Mac, and the Lisa 2 (a.k.a. Macintosh XL). These drives had a variable speed motor that allowed the Mac to pack 400K into a disk that would only hold 360 KB on a fixed-speed drive. (This is also the reason non-Mac computers can’t mount 400K and 800K Mac floppy disks.)

Macs with 800K double-sided drives and Mac-compatible 1.4MB High Density (HD) drives can read and write the MFS format used by 400K disks as long as they are running System 7.5.5 or earlier. Under Mac OS 7.6 and 7.6.1, they can read 400K floppies but not write to them. There is no support at all for 400K floppy disks in Mac OS 8 and beyond.

There is also no support for floppy disks with greater than 400K capacity in those original three models. Disk access is controlled by code in the system ROMs, and that can’t be updated to support double-sided drives. (There is also a 20 MB maximum volume size for MFS hard drives.)

Disk

How To Use A Floppy Disk

All Mac OS versions up to System 7.1 support formatting 400K floppy disks.

800K Disks

When Apple introduced the Mac Plus in January 1986, it adopted double-sided floppy drives with 800K capacity – and a newer disk format known as HFS, for Hierarchical File System. (HFS had been introduced in 1985 to support Apple’s first Mac hard drive, the 20 MB Hard Disk 20, which connected via the slow floppy disk port. Those with pre-1986 Macs had to boot from a floppy drive that would install the HFS drivers that allowed them to boot from the HFS formatted hard drive.) MFS disks use a flat file system. Although the Mac makes it appear that it has true folders, this is an illusion.

With HFS, the Mac gained a multi-level hierarchy of folders and the ability to access hard drive volumes at huge as 2 TB. Keep in mind, this was the age of 20-40 MB hard drives, 1 GB drives were a long ways off, and its only in recent years the 1 TB drives have become commonplace.

Except for the pre-1986 Macs that have built-in 400K floppy drives, all Macs running System 3 through Mac OS 9.2.2 and using an Apple or specifically Mac-compatible floppy drive can read 800K floppy disks. (Mac OS X does not support internal floppy drives.)

Macs running System 3 through Mac OS 9.2.2 support formatting 800K floppy disks.

1.4 MB Disks

Apple introduced high density (HD) floppy disks to the Mac with the Mac IIx in September 1988. Going forward, all new Macs with floppy drives would have what Apple sometimes called FDHD (floppy disk, high density) or SuperDrive – not to be confused with the DVD-burning optical drive of the same name.

Not only that, but the Mac SE was updated with the HD drive, and Apple offered upgrade kits for both the Mac II and pre-FHDH Mac SE. Because their system ROMs did not support these drives, the 1986 Mac Plus and 512Ke do not work with Apple’s HD floppy drives.

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.

How To Use A Floppy Disk Drive

Mac OS 8.1: HFS+ Makes More Efficient Use of Disk Space

As hard drives grew in capacity, some limitations of the HFS format became apparent. In the era of small hard drives, it didn’t matter, because whether you were using a floppy disk, a hard drive, or a removable media (SyQuest, Zip, etc.) drive, they all used the same size block of data – 512 Bytes (0.5 KB).

Or did they? Another limitation of HFS is that it cannot work with more than 65,535 files or blocks of data. That meant the operating system would have to cluster more than one 512 byte chunk of data into an allocation block. For instance, on a 1 GB partition, space was allocated in blocks of 16 KB, using 32 of those 512 byte data blocks.

Apple addressed this by introducing the HFS+ file system with Mac OS 8.1 in January 1998. HFS+ supports over 4 billion allocation blocks. That means that a 500 MB drive or partition will still use 512 Byte allocation blocks, a 1 GB drive will double that to 1024 Bytes (2 x 512), and so on.

Under HFS, that began to happen once hard drives passed the 30 MB mark, so HFS+ made for much more efficient use of data space. Below 32 MB of so, HFS and HFS+ both use 512 byte allocation blocks.

Alsoft created PlusOptimizer to convert HFS hard drives to HFS+ format.

And what does this have to do with floppy disks? Keep reading, because HFS+ floppies became a possibility in the era of USB floppy drives!

Macs Without Floppy Drives: The iMac Generation

1.4 MB Only (Sort of)

One of the chief faults of the iMac when Steve Jobs unveiled it in May 1998, according to most critics, was its lack of a built-in floppy drive. This was especially true for people who had an iMac at school or work but an older Mac or PC at home. You had to buy a USB floppy drive to read the disk from your other computer.

Problem is, none of these USB floppy drives have the variable speed motor necessary to read the Mac’s 800K disks, so you had to be sure to use 1.4 MB HD floppies (or 720K floppies in the case of PCs with 3.5″ floppy drives). Fortunately all but the oldest Macs support HD floppies, but the expense of an external USB floppy drive was discouraging to many longtime Mac users – and potential iMac adopters.

Another option was to use Apple’s software to format a double-sided, double-density floppy to 720K instead of 800K, in which case most USB floppy drives can read and write to it. On the other hand, it’s a pain to use with Macs, which don’t expect that format.

Mac OS X Changed Everything

When Apple introduced Mac OS X, one thing it didn’t do is provide drivers for the Mac’s internal floppy drives. It does support USB floppy drives, and it would normally format them as HFS disks – although there were some changes over time.

Siber-Sonic, who used to work for Apple, did extensive research of this subject, answering the question, “If I format a HD floppy disk in a USB floppy drive, what format with OS X use? Also, do all versions of OS X support HFS floppies?”

HFS Floppies: Fully Readable, No Writes with OS X 10.6 or Later

The good news is that all tested versions of Mac OS X are able to read 1.4 MB floppy disks in a USB floppy drive. The bad news – well, at least less good – is that starting with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, you can’t write to an HFS-formatted floppy disk. To do that, you need to use OS X 10.5 Leopard or earlier.

HFS+ Floppies: Full Compatible with All Versions of Mac OS X

Under OS X 10.6 or earlier, the default format when formatting a floppy disk is HFS, but earlier versions (at least back to 10.4 Tiger) let you choose HFS+ as your disk format.

Floppy Disk Reader Best Buy

How To Use A Floppy Disk Reader For Mac

1.4 MB floppy disk formatted as HFS has 1.4 MB available space.

1.4 MB floppy disk formatted as HFS+ has 1.3 MB available space.

Would you have guessed that an HFS+ floppy would have less available storage space than an HFS disk? Roughly 123 KB of additional space is used by the file system. Regardless, at least you have a floppy disk you can use in current Macs as well as vintage ones running Mac OS 8.1, the first with HFS+, and later.

What About More Modern Macs and Mac OS Versions?

Siber-Sonic found that under OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, although the operating system can read and write HFS+ floppies, the only options for formatting are the FAT and ex-FAT formats used in the Windows world. That said, they can still read those HFS floppy disks from 1988!

Summary

In short, 400K MFS floppy disks can only be used in Apple branded and Mac-compatible 400K, 800K, and 1.4 MB drives. You can write to them through System 7.5.5 and read them through Mac OS 7.6.1. You cannot access them at all in Mac OS 8.0 or newer

800K floppy disks also require an Apple branded or Mac-compatible floppy drive with a variable speed motor. These can be used in any Mac with an 800K of FDHD floppy drive with System 3 through Mac OS 9.2.2. They are not compatible with any version of Mac OS X.

1.4 MB HFS floppy disks require an Apple FDHD, Mac-compatible HD floppy drive, or USB floppy drive. They are supported in all versions of the Classic Mac OS from 3.0 through 9.2.2 and can be read in any Mac. You can write to them using System 3.0 through Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Later versions of OS X can read but not write to them.

How To Use A Floppy Disk On A Windows

Finally, 1.4 MB HFS+ floppy disks can be fully accessed from Mac OS 8.1 forward, although OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and later will not let you format an HFS+ floppy. OS X 10.6 and 10.7 will let you erase an HFS floppy, but they will only format floppy disks as HFS+.

Further Reading

What Do You Use A Floppy Disk For

  • Working with Macintosh Floppy Disks in the New Millennium, Siber-Sonic
  • Mac OS X: Mac OS Extended (HFS Plus) Volume and File Limits, Apple
  • Technical Note TN1150: HFS Plus Volume Format, Apple Developer Connection
  • Macintosh File System, Wikipedia
  • Hierarchical File System, Wikipedia
  • HFS Plus, Wikipedia
  • HFS+ Floppy Disks, 68kMLA

Keywords: #macfloppy #hfs #hfsplus

How To Use A Floppy Disk Reader For Mac

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