Acmlm's Board - I2 Archive - Hardware/Software - Formatting Mac Disks to be Used on Windows?
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Karadur
Posts: 943/1192 |
Right. I only got enough time to try formatting a couple disks last night, and thankfully, they worked fine. However, one of the other disks I tried, according to the program, had errors in the system sector, which made the disk unusable. That lead me to think that the disks I'd tried formatting at the start of this whole mess were affected the same way  They were formatted with NFormat, in case it means anything to anyone.
Now, since Acmlm asked what's on these disks (but it's really for whoever wants to see what's apparently on them), I made up a list last night, and here it is:
:: PS Printer Support Kit - Macintosh Systems (3 disks)
:: SCSI Interface Kit Distribution Diskette for the Apple Macintosh II, Plus, and SE
:: Computers
:: Printer Utility / Laser Utility *
:: ClickArt
:: Macintosh (6 disks) **
:: Adobe TypeManager
:: SuperMac Build-In Video INIT 1.5 Software
:: Adobe Dimensions 1.0 (3 disks)
:: Adobe Illustrator 3.2 and 3 (version 3 had 1 disk, 3.2 had 2 disks)
:: Adove Type Library Utilities Disk
:: Multi-Ad Creator (4 disks)
* this was handwritten on the label, so there's a possibility that something different was stored on it originally.
** oddly enough, all 6 of these disks were marked as high-density. I found it odd that they were the only ones of the bunch that were marked as such 
The above are exactly what appear on the disk labels.
Thanks for the help everyone 
edit 1: forgot about the disks labelled "Macintosh" being high-density
edit 2: fixed the doublespacing on my sig (I see it's back) |
BMF98567
Posts: 923/1261 |
High-density 1.44MB disks also tend to have an "HD" symbol in the upper-right corner. You can't miss it. |
kitty
Posts: 1475/2449 |
Originally posted by Karadur
Originally posted by Tomguy
THe problem is probably that the mac disks aren't High-Density 1.44MB floppies, but rather 768k ones.
Try formatting it as a 768k disk instead.
I hope this doesn't count as a bump, but thanks. I'll try that when I get home tonight with the NFormat program FreeDOS posted a link to I'm going to risk sounding stupid with this next question, but if I can format one as a 768k disk without problems, then would I be able to format them again to the normal 1.44Mb size? Any extra space that I can get on a disk is for the better 
Nope. It'd be like trying to format a 20gb drive to hold 40gb. It just won't work. Thing with floppies, is that a PC can't tell if it's a 1.44mb or a 768k disk without your input. An Apple can. The 1.44mb disks have a second hole symmetrical to the write-protect tab. The lower-density ones don't. |
Karadur
Posts: 940/1192 |
Originally posted by Tomguy
THe problem is probably that the mac disks aren't High-Density 1.44MB floppies, but rather 768k ones.
Try formatting it as a 768k disk instead.
I hope this doesn't count as a bump, but thanks. I'll try that when I get home tonight with the NFormat program FreeDOS posted a link to I'm going to risk sounding stupid with this next question, but if I can format one as a 768k disk without problems, then would I be able to format them again to the normal 1.44Mb size? Any extra space that I can get on a disk is for the better
Now, so everyone else who replied won't feel left out:
Nebetsu: I tried formatting one of the disks both when the tab was open and closed (although both attempts were from a command prompt), with no luck As for what you said about being able to format them with the Windows 95 format utility, I'd assume in this case that the OS difference is a problem. My computer at home is running XP Home SP2, in case it means anything to someone.
Then, when it comes to the dispute about either Mac or Windows being evil, I have to say I'm happy with what's on my computer. There certainly are some drawbacks, such as the time it takes for the thing to boot. I used CCleaner to clean the registry on the weekend, and restarted the computer just in case it needed to be, and it took what seemed to be less than 20 seconds to boot. Subsequent boots took what seemed to me about a minute 
FreeDOS: Thanks for that link. As I said on what Tomguy posted, I'll try that tonight and let you know what happened tomorrow The 1.74Mb option in the screenshot looks quite nice, although I found a program last Thursday that was supposed to let me format a floppy disk to be able to hold up to 1.72Mb of data (see SuperFormat on this site), and although the formatting process worked, every time I try to put something on the disk, I get an error about how windows couldn't create the directory That's not a big worry right now though.
Acmlm: Well, I did a format a: from the Run window, which opened up the DOS window, so I assume that's pretty much what you're talking about. As I said two paragraphs up, that didn't work. As for what's on the floppies, upon glancing at the labels when I got them, it's software, drivers for various pieces of hardware, and possibly some other stuff. I think one of the programs that was in there was a version of Adobe Illustrator. It was version 3.0, if I remember correctly. Of course, there's multiple disks for the programs. If you want, I'll make up a list of the stuff when I get home tonight, and post it when I come back here (volunteering, I mean) tomorrow.
BMF54123: If all else fails, I'll keep you in mind when I try that
HyperHacker: I agree. Although, as I said to BMF, I won't overlook it if everything else fails I'd be against putting it back in a computer as well, in case the disk itself got magnetized.
Thanks for all the help up 'till now |
kitty
Posts: 1437/2449 |
THe problem is probably that the mac disks aren't High-Density 1.44MB floppies, but rather 768k ones.
Try formatting it as a 768k disk instead. |
HyperLamer
Posts: 4916/8210 |
Actually, magnetizing the disk probably isn't good for it. |
Nebetsu
Posts: 1361/1574 |
Macs aren't "evil". Windows is "evil". Macs are just simple. You know like that guy said on ctrlaltdel. "Is that a Fisher Price: My First Computer?"
I soooo agree. |
BMF98567
Posts: 903/1261 |
If all else fails, just get a really strong magnet and run it all over the disk a bunch of times. That oughta clear out any remaining Mac evil.
(Hey, just kidding about that "evil" part! I don't have a problem with Macs! Hahaha! Please don't kill me, Taryn.) |
FreeDOS
Posts: 1487/1657 |
Actually, Macintosh has always been able to read FAT floppies 
But yes, you can use any filesystem you want on them, as long as the system itself isn't too large (I don't know of any; Microsoft tries to make you think NTFS can't fit on a floppy, but it can. the MS format utility just makes a 2MB logfile for NTFS by default, it kills floppies). |
Nebetsu
Posts: 1360/1574 |
Originally posted by neotransotaku
don't floppies use the same file system? so, it doesn't matter which OS you use to format...
so yeah, either write protection or there is something wrong with your current windows installation
No you can format your floppies with a number of different file systems. When I was little, that's why I couldnt bring work from home to school and visa versa. They had apple and I had windows. |
neotransotaku
Posts: 3183/4016 |
don't floppies use the same file system? so, it doesn't matter which OS you use to format...
so yeah, either write protection or there is something wrong with your current windows installation |
Nebetsu
Posts: 1358/1574 |
I've formatted Mac disks using the Windows 95 format utility. I think it's just the write protect tabs. |
Acmlm
Posts: 1119/1173 |
Did you try simply doing "format a:" from the DOS prompt? And what Macintosh stuff was on those floppies anyway?
I've done it the other way around on my old Macintosh before, reformatting PC floppies (which was easy, it asked when I entered them) |
FreeDOS
Posts: 1483/1657 |
Use NFORMAT to low-level format the disk. That's probably your problem
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Nebetsu
Posts: 1356/1574 |
Check the write protect tabs on the disks. |
Karadur
Posts: 939/1192 |
I realize that isn't helpful, and I'm sorry, but that was pretty much what I remember seeing. After much scouring through various results on google, however, I've found the error message:
"Windows was unable to complete the format."
I don't know if it'll help or not, but here's exactly what I did the first time I tried to format one of the disks.
:: I opened "My Computer" with the disk in the drive, and double-clicked on the icon for it
:: After a couple seconds, a small window popped up that said "The disk in drive A: is not formatted. Do you want to format it now"? I clicked "Yes", and from the new window that popped up, clicked "Start".
:: The error message at the top of this post popped up after a bit. I went through the first two steps again, but unchecked the "Quick Format" box, and got the same error.
Thanks for trying to help so far. |
||bass
Posts: 463/817 |
"Something like" isn't helpful.
What was the exact message, letter for letter. |
Karadur
Posts: 938/1192 |
Originally posted by ||bass
Usually you can just right click on the A: drive in windows explorer and select "Format" from the little menu.
I tried doing that, and it just gave me the same error message that popped up after my other attempts to format one The message itself wasn't very helpful either. It was something like "Windows was unable to format this disk"
That error occurred both when I left the "Quick Format" checkbox checked, and when I cleared it |
||bass
Posts: 462/817 |
Usually you can just right click on the A: drive in windows explorer and select "Format" from the little menu. |
Karadur
Posts: 937/1192 |
I have probably 20 floppies with various Mac-related stuff on them at home. My parents brought them home for me from Loads of Love (a charity organization here) quite a while ago, thinking I would be able to use them, but they're no good to me in their current state, obviosuly.
As the thread title states, I'm wondering if there's a way to format them from whatever filesystem they're in right now to one that's compatible with Windows.
I did a search on google yesterday afternoon, and came up with TransMac. Unfortunately, that program will only allow me to view the files on my computer at home. It has a function to format the disk, but only to two Mac formats (HFS and HFS+, as the site states).
Oddly enough though, I tried viewing the files on two of the disks earlier this morning, and both times the program gave me an error message. Maybe that's because I tried formatting them with Windows first though
I'd rather not have to pitch the disks when there's chance they could still be used, so thanks if you can help |
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