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 USB external floppy disk drive is a Ultra Slim external portable floppy disk Drive. Once it is connected to notebooks or PCs, You can view all of information on your floppy disks right now.

• Floppy Disk Drive For Macbook Pro

Hi y'all, So I'm helping my significant other in putting together a computer system (and peripherals) for her elderly mom. We're getting her an iMac, new printer, etc. One thing she needs is a floppy drive because she has a bunch of 3.5' disks with data on them that she wants to save. So my question for you folks is: Do you know of a model (still available from Amazon or somewhere else reputable) that will play nice with a new iMac? I'd prefer to keep it at $20 or less, but understand if the only real option costs more than that. I see a lot of drives on Amazon, but can't seem to find one with (positive) feedback from Mac owners.

Manage files Parallels Access also includes a full-fledged File Manager, which allows you to browse, copy, move, or delete files on remote computers. It’s easy to move between multiple windows or open applications from the App Switcher, but if you prefer to mirror the entire desktop screen like other VNC apps, this can be done via Settings > Desktop Mode. Both viewing modes offer smart magnification when making a selection for precise control during text selection, drag-and-drop, or using the on-screen cursor. Jumping between multiple remote applications is a snap with the App Switcher feature in Parallels Access. With the latest update, you can now move the cursor while using iOS 9’s new trackpad mode from the on-screen keyboard. How to install parallels desktop for mac.

Any recommendations based on personal experience? Thanks for the idea, but I don't think you're understanding me. She has 3.5' floppy disks, not hard drives. She also has no other computer. So she needs a way to get the data from the floppy disks onto her new iMac.

Or maybe I was misunderstanding you. Sure. We'll cross that road when we come to it. And could always bootcamp or VMware into a different OS to read them and convert the data.

But the stopping point for me right now is actually getting the 1s and 0s from the floppy media to her hard drive. Click to expand.No I understood your problem but perhaps I didn't explain it sufficiently enough. The reason a floppy drive won't work on mac is most likely due to the lack of drivers (Apple never had 3.5' floppy drives - not even in the first iMac). As a result the chances the floppy drives work with Mac OSX is minimal.

My suggestion is you install Bootcamp (Windows) or use Parallels to run a virtual machine of Windows. Windows will support floppy drives. Once you have done that, copy the contents of the floppy disks onto a memory stick or a hard drive. She will now be able to access the files on her iMac (and if the formats are supported, she will be able to use them too). Your floppy disks are now redundant and you can remove Windows. No I understood your problem but perhaps I didn't explain it sufficiently enough. The reason a floppy drive won't work on mac is most likely due to the lack of drivers (Apple never had 3.5' floppy drives - not even in the first iMac).

As a result the chances the floppy drives work with Mac OSX is minimal. My suggestion is you install Bootcamp (Windows) or use Parallels to run a virtual machine of Windows. Windows will support floppy drives. Once you have done that, copy the contents of the floppy disks onto a memory stick or a hard drive.

She will now be able to access the files on her iMac (and if the formats are supported, she will be able to use them too). Your floppy disks are now redundant and you can remove Windows. Click to expand.What in God's name are you talking about? Every Mac from 1984 to 1998 had 3.5' floppy drives. The first Mac under my control was a Mac SE with two 3.5' floppy drives and no hard drive. The original iMac in 1998 was the first not to have a floppy drive.

You must be confusing 5.25' floppy drives with 3.5' floppy drives. Macs never used 5.25' floppy drives but they largely pioneered 3.5' floppy drives. Following Apple's abandonment of floppy drives in the late 1990s, the peripheral market stepped-in with USB external 3.5' floppy drives. They 'just worked' with no additional drivers required. Windows PCs extant all continued to use built-in floppy drives-many of them using dual floppy drives. External 3.5' floppy drives were Mac peripherals because Windows did not need them.

We can assume that a USB external floppy drive will still work on your Mac. 'Apple never had 3.5' floppy drives - not even in the first iMac. As a result the chances the floppy drives work with Mac OSX is minimal.'

From the very beginning, the Mac used floppy disks. My original Mac SE came with TWO of them. Macs started with 400k floppies, then went to 800k, then 1.8gb (the 'SuperDrive') of that era, before DVD's). (Aside: judging from your screen name, the Mac floppy era was from before you were born!) To the original poster: You didn't make clear what KIND of floppy disks your mom has - the answer is VERY important. Were they PC-created floppies, or were they Mac-created floppies?

If the floppies are from a PC, you might be able to buy a USB floppy drive and connect it that way. The drive should be able to read 720k and 1.4mb floppy drives. Drivers -might- be a question, as I've never connected a USB floppy in OSX (no need to), but I'm wondering if the underlying disk drivers are just 'there' buried within the OS.

If the floppies are from the 800k/1.8mb Mac era, you may have problems, as these disks cannot be read by USB floppy drives which are designed to read 720/1.4 formats. This is because the old Macs used a special Mac-specific type of disk encoding which PC-formatted floppies do not use. Knowing which kind of floppies you have to read is the first step. There are other ways of transferring the data, as well. To the original poster: You didn't make clear what KIND of floppy disks your mom has - the answer is VERY important. Were they PC-created floppies, or were they Mac-created floppies? If the floppies are from a PC, you might be able to buy a USB floppy drive and connect it that way.

The drive should be able to read 720k and 1.4g floppy drives. Drivers -might- be a question, as I've never connected a USB floppy in OSX (no need to), but I'm wondering if the underlying disk drivers are just 'there' buried within the OS. If the floppies are from the 800k/1.8g Mac era, you may have problems, as these disks cannot be read by USB floppy drives which are designed to read 720/1.4 formats. This is because the old Macs used a special Mac-specific type of disk encoding which PC-formatted floppies do not use.

Knowing which kind of floppies you have to read is the first step. There are other ways of transferring the data, as well. 'You are making this way too hard. IIRC, there are some disks that a too old to be read by USB drives, but they are positively ancient. In fact, they were ancient while Macs still featured floppy drives.' I'm not making it 'too hard', but simply explaining issues involved. When PC's introduced 3.5' floppy disks, they used a 720k format with a specific 'encoding paradigm' called 'MFM'.

When Apple introduced their own floppy drive in the 1984 Macintosh, they used an 800k format with a DIFFERENT encoding system called 'GCR'. Later on, both the PC world and Apple moved to higher-capacity drives, PC's using 1.4mb and Apple using 1.8mb, respectively, and MFM and GCR, again respectively. Apple brought out it's 'SuperDrive' floppy unit, which could read BOTH GCR and MFM encoding formats. PC floppy drives can still read ONLY the 720/1.4 MFM disks, and CANNOT read GCR-formatted (Mac) disks.

Eventually, USB-based floppy drives came on the market, but Apple never sold them and by the time they arrived Apple had abandoned floppy drives. I believe that ALL USB floppy drives are limited to the 720/1.4 MFM format, and thus CANNOT read old Mac 800/1.8 GCR-formatted floppy disks. This is why it's important to know exactly what kind of floppies the original poster is referring to. If his mom has a stack of old -Mac- floppies, USB floppy drives probably won't read them (regardless of what kind of software disk driver is used).

The only way to read those disks will be on an old Mac with a GCR-capable floppy drive. See this page for reference: To the original poster: If you think you can just buy any floppy drive and get things working, it may or may not work. Please re-read what I wrote above, and this post as well. The -kind- of floppy disks your mom has will make the difference! You are going all around Job's barn to refute a point that I didn't make. If you reread my post, then you will see that I acknowledged the fact that not all floppies can be read by a USB floppy drive. FWIW, I own such a USB drive.

The point that I was making is that the floppies that concern you are incredibly old-somewhere around 25 years old, in fact. It is obviously true that if the OP's mom used those ancient floppies, then only a Mac that sports a built-in floppy drive is the best option to read them. Such old floppies are testaments to the durability of Macs, but it is unlikely that the OP's mother's computer is that old. By your choosing to share the bit of information as your contribution to the discussion, you have chosen to unnecessarily discourage the OP.

Floppy Disk Drive For Macbook Pro

Max, Could you please give a little more information. Which version of MacBook Pro do you have, PPC or Intel? Which smartdisk USB drive do you have?

When you say that you are not sure if it is even in the system profiler, will system profiler show a manufacturer ID and other similar information? If it shows a company name, then the device has been seen but the media has not mounted. Have you opened Disk Utility in the Utilities folder in Applications? Have you inserted a blank disk to see if it will trigger a message like 'this disk is not readable, do you want to initialize?' Just some thoughts to dial in on what we are working with.

Max916 wrote: All my disks are Sony MFD-2HD, Maxell mf2HD, Sony MFD-2HD, JVC MF-2HD, FUJIFILM 2HD, Verbatim Datalife MF 2HD, and 3M High Density 1.44. Ok, they'll work fine in your USB drive then. Now, two ideas, depending on what you really want to do:.

You said the drive works on your PC. You can just format them on the PC if that's the case. FORMAT A: /FS:FAT. Plug the drive into the Mac and bring up Disk Utilities (Applications-Utilities-Disk Utility.app) and see if it shows up in the set of drives on the left hand side. You should be able to highlight the drive and format from there.

If it doesn't show up, then maybe it's not supported in OSX. But that's pretty unlikely. I have an ancient USB drive I bought with my iMac back in OS9 days, and it works fine in OSX and PCs alike. They're pretty universally supported. Max, It might be worth checking with someone else who has a Mac to try your USB drive on their equipment.

'I also Don't want to destroy the information on the disks by reformatting them. I want to get the information off of them.'

It is not uncommon for one of our older computers to not recognize a disk. We take that disk to another computer and it reads the disk just fine. So, guard the disks until you find something that reads them.

Back to the issue of having the drive show up in system profiler. Do you know anyone who has an older Mac? Do you know of a Mac User group near you?

Are there any system files that should have been installed before attaching the drive? Grasping at straws here without having other equipment to test the disks. You said that the PC will recognize the drive but wants to format them. Have you tried putting new, blank disks into the drive while it is connected to a PC? Will all read, write and format functions of the drive work on the PC side? If so, then you should try the drive on someone else's Mac and see if the error is just with your model and system configuration.

Experiment and look for a user group. The key is to find a drive that will see the disks get the files to a hard drive. Apple Footer. This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only. Apple may provide or recommend responses as a possible solution based on the information provided; every potential issue may involve several factors not detailed in the conversations captured in an electronic forum and Apple can therefore provide no guarantee as to the efficacy of any proposed solutions on the community forums. Apple disclaims any and all liability for the acts, omissions and conduct of any third parties in connection with or related to your use of the site.

All postings and use of the content on this site are subject to the.