Reading IBM 5.25" disks from days of yore

[beachycove]

I have some old 5.25" disks originally used on a pc under DOS long ago, when silicon dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Is it possible to read these on a vintage Mac? If so, what hardware would I need? I have plenty of Quadras and such to work with, but is there a scsi drive or something that can be plugged in to allow for this?

I've frankly no idea, but someone out there must know if this is at all possible.

 

[LCGuy]

You need an Apple PC 5.25" Drive (and the NuBus controller card required for it).

Information on them is here.

 

[beachycove]

Thanks. Just what the doctor ordered.

 

[Charlieman]

Note that the Apple 5.25" drive is severely limited and will only read 360KB disks on a Mac with a very old OS. A better option is the DaynaFile which came in various editions (5.25" 360KB, 5.25" 1.2MB, 3.5" 1.4MB, 3.5" 720KB) and combinations of the above. However they are pretty rare and it is an age since I saw ne for sale (I bought it).

 

[slomacuser]

orig. Apple 5.25" disks as I know work only with Macintosh SE and Macintosh II (According to Apple, the drive and controller cards are not compatible with Macs with FDHD ROMs.) And with Apple File Exchange application. I got Mac SE with this 5.25" floppy drive and the disk drive is not operating with mac os, but only trough as I said before Apple File Exchange app.

So I agree with Charlie man ...

 

[beachycove]

"FDHD Roms" is something I had to look up.

If I understand this correctly, to use one of these external floppy drives would require something older than an SE30, which is the oldest machine I have at present.

So, either I give up on the idea, or look for an unfindable DanaFile, or find an SE or such and the additional bits and pieces to do this with – or, indeed, revive my PC/XT silicon dinosaur. Hmmm, can I still do DOS, I wonder?

 

[slomacuser]

or you can send me the floppies, and I transfer them to email, so you can use them on mac with Virtual PC or something

 

[tomlee59]

Are your disks 1.2MB or 360K? If the latter, you have more options.

 

[beachycove]

Thanks for your help with this. They are 360k disks. They are not, however, altogether mission-critical. I have coped without the disks since about 1993, and I dare say that I can live without them still. However, we all like to tinker, and this is a kind of tinkering that could almost qualify as useful....

What I didn't realize is that it would be quite so complicated. It's not exactly a question of plug and play on any Mac, is it?

 

[aftermac]

Nope, not exactly plug and play. You could always get a 5.25" PC drive and plug it into a Windows box and transfer the files to a 3.5" floppy.

Although, I'm not exactly sure what your project is... If the point is to get a Mac to read a 5.25" DOS floppy and not just get the files transfered, then this suggestion won't exactly help.

 

[Charlieman]

What I didn't realize is that it would be quite so complicated. It's not exactly a question of plug and play on any Mac, is it?

Nope, but it is equally as plug and pray on a vintage PC... If you really need the data, talk to a disk transfer service; there is at least one in most countries that specialise in extracting data from "obsolete" media. A commercial company *should* do a good job of recovering as much information as possible from degraded disks, whereas an amateur is likely to make a hash of it. If you are not desparate for the data but wish to experience the recovery process yourself, look out for a DaynaFile *ideally with* power supply and software.

Personally, I don't have a problem with handling any of the common 3.5" and 5.25" Apple, DOS and CP/M formats but 8" disks are trickier. Fortunately they don't come up too often (my last 8" disk recovery was 10 years ago) and there are professionals who can read almost any disk for a price.

On a related note, take a look at some photos salvaged from old, undeveloped film at http://www.processc22.co.uk/

 

[Anonymous Freak]

(Sorry to revive an old thread.)

Hrm... So that 5.25" Apple drive I have that matches the style of the SE and Macintosh II appears to be an "Apple PC 5.25" Drive", but is 100% useless to me because I don't have the proper controller card? Shoot. I always thought I was only missing driver software.

I've been trying to find a way to get software onto my Apple IIe, apparently even if I *DID* have the right controller card, this drive would still be useless...

Oh well, I hopefully will have a IIc+ (3.5" internal drive, plus it is coming with an external 5.25" drive,) and a IIgs (which should also work with the external 5.25" drive,) soon; I can use them as intermediaries, I suppose.

And while I have a boatload (5 at last count, I believe,) of 800k drives, I would love to have an original 400k drive or an external SuperDrive...

 

[II2II]

PC Floppy issue: if you have a NuBus Mac, couldn't you use an appropriate PC compatibility card (e.g. an Orange Micro unit).

Apple II issue: the easiest way is to use MacADT.