USB Floppy Drive works on PC not on eMac

[flashedbios2012]

I have an eMac 700 that I run Mac OS 9 on.  No OS X at all.  I plug a USB floppy in and it doesn't do anything at all.  Works fine on a PC.  Also works on a hack-in-tosh I have.  I'd like to get it working on os 9 though considering I'm about to purchase and or trade for a few os 9 machines.  its a team fd-05puw

 

[carguyty]

While voltage is consistent on all USB ports, it is possible that amperage is not nearly enough to power the circuit for complete read/write. That would cause the drive to fail its own POST and refuse to send the proper signals to OS 9. It's pure speculation on my part, but you can troubleshoot this part of the circuit by plugging the USB floppy drive into a powered hub with 500mA minimum. 1A is better, but harder to find.

I had success using a floppy drive connected to USB on a G3 iBook. The thing would only work when connected directly through the ports on the machine. When I used the G4 PowerBook, it wouldn't work and I had to move it to a powered hub. Early USB 1.1 devices tended to not think of the future of powered devices and were intended to only charge the circuits of mouses and keyboards. 350mA was plenty for the time. Even USB 2.0 had no interests in much more than what a flash based hard drive could do.

Again, this is only anecdotal evidence. YMMV. Good luck!

 

[flashedbios2012]

the USB spec states 5V 500mA must be supplied by a port.  these ports work in OS X with the drive so why not os 9?

 

[Carboy7]

It is sorta like the USB Pro keyboards that don't supply enough power to run anything lighter then a mouse.

 

[flashedbios2012]

I was able to get it working. Cant plug it into the keyboard, have to go direct. on another note, when i insert a floppy disk, it automatically appears on the desktop, disk label and all. Why don't USB floppies do this on a PC? in windows?

 

[goncalo]

What a coincidence!

I was given a "generic" usb floppy drive just today, but my problem was the opposite - I just couldn't make it to work on a windows 10 pc (no drivers/device not recognized... the usual windowy party).

As soon as I connected it to the G3 keyboard (what can I say, it was closer...) I was greeted with the low power warning.

II plugged it to the iMac USB port and it worked like a charm

 

[jamie marchant]

I've heard that a lot of Mac keyboard do not supply enough power. I guess OS 9 is not smart enough to tell you this.