“Hey! I’ve got a floppy drive on my Mac, and it reads some floppies just fine, yet not others. What’s the deal?”
• 400K diskettes and Mac OS 8 The 400K MFS diskette format is not supported by Mac OS 8. If you have information or programs on obsolete 400K diskettes that you want to access, copy the files to your hard disk, an 800K diskette, or a 1.44 MB diskette before installing Mac OS 8.
System 0.7–System 2* 1984–1985 | System 3–System 7.1 Update 3 1986–1993 | System 7.5(.0)–7.5.5 1994–1996 | Mac OS 7.6–7.6.1 1997 | OS 8.0 1997 | OS 8.1–9.2.2* 1998–2001 | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
400k MFS | Read | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Write | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | |
800k & 1.4MB HFS | Read | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Write | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
1.4MB HFS+† | Read | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
OS Erase/(Re)Format | MFS | MFS or HFS | HFS | HFS | HFS | HFS |
“So wait… what can I do with an external USB floppy drive on a newer (OS X era) Mac?”
PowerBook5,6 (PPC) | MacBook1,1 (Intel) | iMac5,2 (Intel) | MacBookAir4,2 (Intel) | MacBookPro9,1 (Intel) | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
OS 10.4.11 Tiger | OS 10.5.8 Leopard | OS 10.5.8 Leopard | OS 10.6.8 Snow Leopard | OS 10.7.5 Lion | OS 10.8.5 Mountain Lion | OS 10.12.6 Sierra | OS 10.14.2 Mojave | ||
HFS | Read | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Write | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | |
HFS+ | Read | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Write | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
Disk Utility (Re)Format | HFS or HFS+ | HFS or HFS+ | HFS or HFS+ | Will erase (reformat) totally unformatted floppies and existing HFS standard floppies as HFS standard, but HFS+ is the only Mac option for floppies with any other format. | FAT and ExFAT (Windows) options only. | FAT and ExFAT (Windows) options only. | Offers long list of formats, most of which will fail if tried. See Apple Buggy Bogosity section below. | Offers long list of formats, most of which will fail if tried. See Apple Buggy Bogosity section below. |
PowerBook5,6 (PPC) | iMac5,2 (Intel) | MacBookPro9,1 (Intel) | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
OS 10.4.11 Tiger | OS 10.6.8 Snow Leopard | OS 10.7.5 Lion | OS 10.12.6 Sierra | OS 10.14.2 Mojave | ||
FAT 12 | Read | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Write | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
ExFAT | Read | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Write | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
Disk Utility (Re)Format | HFS, HFS+, FAT, UNIX File System | HFS+, FAT, or ExFAT. | FAT and ExFAT (Windows) options only. | Offers long list of formats, most of which will fail if tried. See Apple Buggy Bogosity section above. | Offers long list of formats, most of which will fail if tried. See Apple Buggy Bogosity section above. |
Reads 720k | Reads 1.4MB | PPC | Intel | Vintage Mac OS Range | OS X/macOS Range | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ESYNiC black | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | OS 8.6 to end | All through 10.12 Sierra | Does Not work on a 2015 MacBook Pro running El Capitan and certain Intel iMac computers running Yosemite 10.10.5 [See Additional Drive Reports below this table] |
ESYNiC white | |||||||
Neoteck black | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | OS 8.6 to end | All through 10.12 Sierra | |
Neoteck white | |||||||
LANIAKEA | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | OS 8.6 to end | All through 10.12 Sierra | Does Not work on a 2015 MacBook Pro running El Capitan and certain Intel iMac computers running Yosemite 10.10.5 |
West Port | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | All through 10.12 Sierra | |
Sabrent | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | All through 10.12 Sierra | |
Flashmen | No | Yes | Yes | No | Only OS 9 | None | |
Chuanganzhuo | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | OS 8.6 to end | All through 10.12 Sierra | |
OWIKAR | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | OS 8.6 to end | All through 10.12 Sierra | Does Not work on a 2015 MacBook Pro running El Capitan and certain Intel iMac computers running Yosemite 10.10.5 |
Tendak | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | OS 8.6 to end | All through 10.12 Sierra | Does Not work on a 2015 MacBook Pro running El Capitan and certain Intel iMac computers running Yosemite 10.10.5 |
“Alright… I’ve got my floppy data on This Old Mac. How do I get it onto my new Mac? They don’t seem to talk to each other!”
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