• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Formating 400k disk for Mac 128

I THINK the trial version of TransMac will let you format a 400K disk on your PCs 1.44 drives, but, I'm not SURE.

I'm not at that computer and I'm too tired to go and try it :)
 
Nope. The only computers that can read and write Apple-compatible 400k single sided or 800k double sided disks are real Apple Macintoshes that shipped with Apple floppy drives. Anything prior to the "colorful" era; a beige G3 or earlier, an 'original' PowerBook G3 (the one that looks like a PowerBook 3400c,) or earlier.

*NO* PC floppy drive can read or write to a 400k or 800k Apple disk. This is because Apple used a completely different method of writing to the disk, that spun the drive slower and faster to get more usable space out of it than PC drives of the time.

(I believe some Amigas could also read them, but not write to them, with special software.)

You'll need an old Mac to do it. And in order to write 400k floppy disk images, you'll need an older version of the "Disk Copy" software. (Sorry, I don't have the version number handy, I'll look it up tomorrow and post back.)
 
I did some searching around last night after I wrote the thread and discovered that only an SE or older with system 6 will be able to do it. I have system 7.5 on my SE so I will have to come up with something. Maybe put the old 40 meg drive in and put system 6 on it, then swap back later, or I may be possible to boot into 6 with diskcopy 4.2 on the boot floppy.

Thanks for the replies guys.
 
lenegade said:
I did some searching around last night after I wrote the thread and discovered that only an SE or older with system 6 will be able to do it. I have system 7.5 on my SE so I will have to come up with something. Maybe put the old 40 meg drive in and put system 6 on it, then swap back later, or I may be possible to boot into 6 with diskcopy 4.2 on the boot floppy.

Thanks for the replies guys.
Click to expand...

Uh, hang on. Let me try it in the basement. I dug my beige G3 out, it has 8.5, 9.2.2, 10.0.3, and 10.1.5 on it. I'm pretty sure I've written 400k disk images from that machine before. (I have a few old 400k disks lying around I can try with.) I know that OS 9 can't do it, but I was pretty sure 8 could. I know you need Disk Copy 4.2 or earlier, though. (I recall reading that it is possible to write 400k disk images with Disk Copy 4.2 even on an OS too new to natively be able to READ 400k disks.)
 
Note that according to this page, System 6 is the last one that can work well with 400k disks, Mac OS 7.6 is the last that can even read 400k disks.

BUT, any "Classic" OS can use Disk Copy 4.2 to write 400k disk images, even if the system can't read the resulting disk! (I have confirmed this by downloading a 400k image from that page, and using Disk Copy 4.2 to write the image to a disk in OS 9.2.2 on my beige G3.)

Note that I can't create a disk image on this computer. Disk Copy 4.2 can't create a new disk image unless the underlying OS knows how to read the disk. So if you wanted to create new 400k disk images, you would need to use Mac OS 7.6 or earlier, but if all you want to do is write them to disk, you can use Mac OS 9.2.2.

If you just can't get them to work, let me know what disks you want images of (I'm sure I have images of them somewhere,) and I'll mail you the disks. (For a favor to be named later. :-P)
 
Yes that was same page I got my info from, and I only need to write the image. Sadly I have no 400k floppies to do this, and my mac 128k is sleeping over at a friends house, so I'll have to shelve the project for a week or so. :( If my tandy arrives soon, it may be longer. ;)
 
lenegade said:
Yes that was same page I got my info from, and I only need to write the image. Sadly I have no 400k floppies to do this, and my mac 128k is sleeping over at a friends house, so I'll have to shelve the project for a week or so. :( If my tandy arrives soon, it may be longer. ;)
Click to expand...

800k floppies (aka "DS, DD", or "Double Sided", "Low Density", "1.0 MB", or any other similar variation,) that are relatively common are 100% usable as 400k (or "Single Sided", or "SS, DD",) disks. This is because a 400k floppy is just an 800k floppy that you're only using one side of. There are no repercussions whatsoever to using an 800k floppy as a 400k floppy, as there are with using a High Density floppy as a Low Density floppy. You can safely format between 400k and 800k back and forth as much as you want.
 
Anonymous Freak said:
800k floppies (aka "DS, DD", or "Double Sided", "Low Density", "1.0 MB", or any other similar variation,) that are relatively common are 100% usable as 400k (or "Single Sided", or "SS, DD",) disks. This is because a 400k floppy is just an 800k floppy that you're only using one side of. There are no repercussions whatsoever to using an 800k floppy as a 400k floppy, as there are with using a High Density floppy as a Low Density floppy. You can safely format between 400k and 800k back and forth as much as you want.
Click to expand...

I can't convince the Mac 8500 to do that, I put in an 800k disk and it just spits it out and says to use a single sided floppy. I have yet to try with the SE though

Druid--- I snagged a Model 100 with tpd off of fleabay.
 
lenegade said:
I can't convince the Mac 8500 to do that, I put in an 800k disk and it just spits it out and says to use a single sided floppy. I have yet to try with the SE though

Druid--- I snagged a Model 100 with tpd off of fleabay.
Click to expand...

Well, Mac OS 7.6 and later don't deal with single sided disks properly, so if your 8500 is running 7.6 or later, the main OS won't do 400k. But I used Disk Copy 4.2 (make sure it's version 4.2, not a later one!) to write 400k disk images onto 800k disks just fine on a beige G3 running OS 9.2.2. I can't read the disks on the beige G3, but when I put them in an SE running System 6.0.7, they read just fine.
 
lenegade said:
I had some success last night writing the image on the SE. I still need to retrieve the mac128 to try out the image.
Click to expand...

Do it on the SE. All of the 68000-based compact Macs have the same basic 'guts' to them. I have booted System 1.0/Finder 1.0 on my SE a few times (even on my newer Classic.)

The 128, 512, 512Ke, Plus, SE, and Classic are all the same, deep down. They only differ in the amount of memory they have and can have, and in their disk support. (As far as the Mac OS is concerned, anyway. Don't try to do anything with the hard drive on any version of the system prior to 3.3, though.)
 
It works on the SE, but then I know the SE is operational. It's the 128 I want to get working and it's not here to test. I'm still looking (passively) for a mouse for it too. But I am not in any hurry, to many other things to do. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top