Can an SE FDHD drive write 800k bootable disks?

[MikeCaputo]

Hey...

My SE is no longer booting from its HD. I get a happy face, lots of disk access and noise for a few minutes, then a flashing folder. 

I'd like to try booting from the floppy drive - if that's successful, and if I can see the contents of the hard drive, I'd like to be able to copy one or two files from that drive to the floppy (they're small).

That's a lot of "if"s.

The showstopper is that I have no way of creating a bootable 800k floppy, although I have the Sys 6 disk image files on another Mac. I also have a PC but I believe it cannot write Mac-readable 800k floppies, right?

The potential savior is literally in the mail - a supposedly working SE FDHD. Can I use that to create an 800k bootable disk?

I guess I'll find out, just wondering if anyone knew off-hand...

Thanks much in advance.

mike c

 

[Scott Baret]

It will work. The FDHD drives in the older Macs themselves are 100% backwards compatible with 800K disks.

It's the USB drives that aren't. 

You can use an SE FDHD (or any other 68K or PPC Mac with an INTERNAL Apple-supplied floppy drive) to make the boot disk or any other 800K disk. Just make sure you trim the components down so they will fit. The best bet is to use a Disk Tools disk from an 800K set. 

 

[johnklos]

Yes, Macintosh HD floppy drives can write 800K disks.

 

[MikeCaputo]

Ah, you guys are amazing. thanks.

 

[Elfen]

To repeat the answer: Yes.

Adding to it - What system is it?

A minimal system that matches the System on the hard drive with "Disk First Aide" on it will bring the hard drive back. Or better yet - if you can get Norton for that system, better. There are 2 I know - 1 for System 6 and 1 for System 7; I do not know if there is on for OS8. You need to use the one for that specific system.