Floppy decaptiates filenames to 8.3

postitlord

postitlord

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Files are being shortened to a the "DOS 8.3" format.
The particular constraints of this computer are:
Mac files on a PC disk on eMac OS 10.1.4 being read on an external drive SMARTDISK.
The problem is the files appear decapted, for example in lists like
!DOCTRIN.GOF
!CATOFT.HEE
etc.
These files have no assosiations to know which program to open with. No icon, just a default piece of paper icon. Each one, since they each have a convoluted "unique extension" (.GOF, .HEE), is requested to choose a program to manually open with, which is totally unacceptable. All files are the same type, and CAN strenuously be opened in their proper program.

How do I make the full file name, and proper icon, appear when browsing such a diskette? (therefore opening in the proper program when double-clicked).

Is there software I can install? Is this a problem because it's an external drive?
 
If you format it as a Macintosh disk it won't do that...

Otherwise if you are trying to share files with a PC, use a external hard drive (USB/SCSI or whatever you have on both machines) or a Zip drive... In both of those cases you can format it with one of the Windows file systems that handles long names...
 
In the future only Macintosh disks will be used, if I have any say in it.:D
However, there are say 60 files like this across two PC floppies. I figure, I could open them on a PC, compress them, and bring to the mac side, and decompress them. I suppose I could do that.
But I suspect in the future PC disks would have to be used again, because 90% of computers out there are Windows users. So is that it, there is no way to ween Mac OS to read the full path on PC diskettes? I've seen free software that does this for CDs..
 
Floppies are outdated technology, too small for many files to fit a single diskette, still provided on new PCs, but newer PC motherboards are rapidly deleting hardware support for floppies. Filenames on PC formatted floppies unfortunately are shortened to 8.3 for MSDOS compatibility. Please note that this is not a complete technical answer. CDs are a different story, partly due to space on disk issues. And the technology is better supported for long file names. start burning CDs....
 
I have this problem copying to zip disks. file names get goofy and my customer has problems with files. without reformatting, is there a workaround?
 
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