USB Floppy Drive in OS X

F

Finch

Insert something here...
Is there any way to get OS X (10.2.6) to recognize a USB floppy drive? All I get when I pop a floppy in is do you wish to intialize or eject? Great and all if you don't mind formatting, unfortunately I'm installing a software app that licenses via floppy...

Finch
 
Plug it in?

I have a VST Floppy Drive that works just fine. Plug it in, pop in a disk, it works.

Does yours not work? Could you be more specific?
 
I think what Finch is getting at, and I have a USB Floppy Lacie drive, and I have got the same error.

Basically, if you stick in a floppy and lets say it's OS 9 or DOS formatted, under OS 9 you could stick in the disk and it would read it, no matter what was on it.

Now it seems that you stick in a disk and it won't read it unless it's a OS X formatted disk.

I assume this is what Finch is requesting. The floppy drive works fine, it's OS X's ability to read those floppies that appears to be in question.

WOW, never really messed with my floppy drive that much, just stuck in a known good PC formatted floppy and it read it. WOW. Not that I will ever need that in my entire life, but hey, still cool.

Finch, if you are getting your error, the floppy drive must be having issues reading the format of the floppy disk, you may want to see if you can verify it's functionality (floppy) in a system with a old fashion floppy drive.

Scott
 
The older programs that still setup and use a floppy as a key are not too reliable under OSX, You may want to contact the software publisher for an alternate key procedure.
 
I've never had a problem getting OS X to recognize a floppy, even if 9 doesn't always recognize the drive after it's been sleeping.
 
I have an Imation floppy drive that came with a used G3 iMac that I bought. It handled most of my old floppies just fine, except for the really ancient 800 kb ones.
 
My VST floppy causes the system to lock up ever since OSX 10.2. There are no driver updates available that I can find.

Just another cross to bear in OSX, along with problems with my Adaptec 2940 SCSI card.
 
I have a VST iMac floppy here at work, which Apple System Profiler will see just fine. But if I leave it plugged in and insert a floppy, it won't mount. I have to insert a floppy then plug in the drive - it works fine on OS 8 & 9 and PC-formatted floppies. Just VERY slow.
 
WOW! Thanks everyone for your valued imput. To bring a bit of closier to the saga I've got PC/DOS formatted disks to mount in Jaguar. Seems the developers of FirstClass still have no time frame for an OS X release of their server...

Further it seems the license floppy disk(s) in question are written in what seems to be a Mac OS Classic/WIN format which could be the reason Mac OS X can't load/mount these diskettes, this from the developer.

I guess for now I'm forced to run my mail server/BBS in classic mode, bummer, then again it could be a PC! Once again thank you all for you imput.

Finch
 
Originally posted by GraphicUmp
I have a VST iMac floppy here at work, which Apple System Profiler will see just fine. But if I leave it plugged in and insert a floppy, it won't mount. I have to insert a floppy then plug in the drive - it works fine on OS 8 & 9 and PC-formatted floppies. Just VERY slow.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's a very common issue. We, too, have to plug in our Imation Superdisk/Floppy Disk drive after inserting the first disk in order to get it to mount.

Subsequent disks work fine, until the drive sits idle for an hour or two, then the unplug/replug dance ensues.

Not a super big deal, but a tiny hassle.

-- Steve
 
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