Macintosh Classic Floppy Probs

[zebpedersen]

Hallo,

I'm trying to get Cubase loaded up on a Macintosh Classic which is in my possession - it's going to be used for writing MIDI sequences to trigger events in Max/MSP which I'll be running on my PowerBook (G4, sorry ) - much cooler to be on stage with a Mac Classic than a plain-jane MacBook I figured!

Anyway, I'm having trouble with the floppy drive - every disk I have made it says "this disk is unreadable" and offers to format (initialize).

The only computers I have access to with floppy drives are PCs (and lots of 'em, I'm a PC repairman when I'm not studying), and what I want to get accomplished is creating a set of disks which are readable by this machine. I would like to format the internal 40mb hard drive, install System 7 (currently running 6) and get Cubase loaded. I've already got an ADB MIDI box.

Any help guys? Would be much appreciated. I'm only OS X literate, I'm afraid!

 

[beachycove]

This is a very common ailment.

Step 1 is to take the Classic apart, and either to clean and lubricate the drive (Google is your friend here), or else to replace it with a drive from a more recent model like a beige G3, which drive, being more recently manufactured and still more recently used, will usually still work.

Step 2: new diskette. It could be faulty too.

 

[Dog Cow]

If you choose to take apart the Mac and clean the disk drive by hand, do yourself a favor and DO NOT lift up the upper head arm. That's the black plastic thing. You will PERMANENTLY destroy your floppy disk drive.

 

[Mac128]

Not sure that's his problem guys ... a little clarification: how did you make these disks? On your PC? Or on the Mac?

If you made them on your PC, make them on your Classic instead. Start up using Cmd Opt X O and create your disks off the RAM Disk system partition from the boot ROM. Then use those to copy your files from your PC. You'll need special software to read the Mac disks though. Someone else can help with that if that's your problem. I don't do Windows.

 

[Paralel]

When I was making disks on my PC to install programs on my Classic II I ran into the same problem. My classic II spit every disk back out at me, even if I tried to initialize the disk on the classic II the init would fail every time regardless of how many different disks, different brands, even different manufacturing years I tried.

The only thing I found that worked was to use the SoftMac XP emulator to format the disk on my PC, then I put it into the classic II, which still said it was crap but the initialization of the disk actually worked now, then I brought it back over to my PC and used RaWrite to write disk images to the disk. After that my Classic II had no trouble reading the disks.

I haven't been able to come up with a good reason why this method works. I have a feeling it has something to do with the low level format of the disk, but that's just a guess.

 

[MidnightCommando]

Paralel: I believe that's something to do with the Mac drive heads having higher magnetic coercivity or some such - that is, they exert a stronger force on the low-level magnetic field of the diskette than a PC drive does.

I could have that the wrong way round.

But yeah, differing magnetic exertion.

 

[Paralel]

Ah, that's definitely a plausible explanation. I never even thought of that, but differing drive head properties would certainly explain it.

That might also explain why when my friend tried to replace the floppy in his old mac with a non-mac part it couldn't read anything.

 

[Mac128]

In part maybe, but it likely has much more to do with the ROM code not recognizing the foreign floppy drive, or the pinouts not conforming to Apple's hardware specs.

 

[tomlee59]

Paralel: I believe that's something to do with the Mac drive heads having higher magnetic coercivity or some such - that is, they exert a stronger force on the low-level magnetic field of the diskette than a PC drive does.
I could have that the wrong way round.

But yeah, differing magnetic exertion.

Of necessity, floppy drives are matched to the characteristics of the media with which they are designed to work. And 720K floppy disks are the same as 800K Mac disks, so there is no difference in "magnetic exertion" or coercivity (which is a property of the media, not of the heads). High-density (1.4MB) floppies are also the same for Macs and PCs, but differ a bit from their lower-density ("double-density") ancestors.

That might also explain why when my friend tried to replace the floppy in his old mac with a non-mac part it couldn't read anything.

Because Mac floppy drives use a completely different interface from that used by PC floppy drives, the non-functioning is to be expected. Indeed, there is a great risk of damaging the Mac (and drive). Cross-species transplants should be undertaken only with extreme care, and only after some research, or you risk a release of magic smoke.