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USB external floppy disk drives

This question went unanswered in the Leopard discussion, and Apple Support web page doesn't seem to give me any option to contact them. Sad state for Apple, if true. (Nobody understands customer support anymore, anyway. 😟 )

I recently purchased a Diablotek slimline USB external floppy disk drive. It's a Teac unit, FD-05PUB. I bought it for use with a Windows 7 netbook, and it does work fine there and under Vista.

I'm trying to get info from Teac about the unit, but so far, no go there either. 😟 The unit is still listed on their website.

I would like to know if the drive should be recognized on my iMac with 10.5.8. I don't want to read Mac formatted floppies from OS 9.X and earlier. I have Parallels Desktop installed on the iMac, and would like to use the floppy drive with the guest operating systems I've installed using Parallels.


Thanks.

iMac - Intel based, Mac OS X (10.5.8), 4 GB RAM, 1 TB hard drive

Posted on Oct 13, 2010 8:16 AM

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35 replies

Oct 13, 2010 9:56 AM in response to snowshed

This question went unanswered in the Leopard discussion, and Apple Support web page doesn't seem to give me any option to contact them. Sad state for Apple, if true. (Nobody understands customer support anymore, anyway. )


Contact Us is at the bottom right corner of each page. This is why web browsers have scrollbars. If you could fit everything on one page you wanted to say, you'd have to have 2 point type and a microscope, or be using a text browser such as Lynx.

I recently purchased a Diablotek slimline USB external floppy disk drive. It's a Teac unit, FD-05PUB. I bought it for use with a Windows 7 netbook, and it does work fine there and under Vista.


USB Floppy drives are a bit of an anathema these days, but at least in Mac OS X, only 1.44 MB floppies are typically recognized by it. As for recognition under Windows operating on a Mac, that's why there is Boot Camp for the Mac. I'm going to ask your thread go to the storage forum for Boot Camp. If it is not recognized there, contact the website for the virtualization package you use use most often. Most have their own forums for such questions.

Good luck.

Oct 13, 2010 11:21 AM in response to a brody

First, I have this nasty tendency to choose vernacular that seems to irritate some readers. So, please understand, I'm not trying to start any arguments or flame wars. πŸ˜€


a brody wrote:

Contact Us is at the bottom right corner of each page. This is why web browsers have scrollbars. If you could fit everything on one page you wanted to say, you'd have to have 2 point type and a microscope, or be using a text browser such as Lynx.


πŸ™‚ Been to the contact page, and a couple pages from that. Nowhere have I found a link that goes directly to Apple Support to ask a question like mine. There are links to web pages for specific products, such as iTunes, MobileMe, etc., but no link to ask questions of Apple itself. There are links to these discussion forums, of course. And, I suspect, if you purchase a maintenance/repair plan, you can get to them directly.

A person might get help from the Genius Bar at an Apple Store, but the nearest store to me is an hour and a half away. Not exactly convenient. πŸ™‚ And the times I've been in the store, I've discovered I often know more than most of the associates, unless I happen to be lucky and find someone that has a few grey hairs on their head! πŸ˜€ This is my "option of last resort".

I have a loooooooot of grey hairs! πŸ˜€


USB Floppy drives are a bit of an anathema these days, but at least in Mac OS X, only 1.44 MB floppies are typically recognized by it. As for recognition under Windows operating on a Mac, that's why there is Boot Camp for the Mac. I'm going to ask your thread go to the storage forum for Boot Camp. If it is not recognized there, contact the website for the virtualization package you use use most often. Most have their own forums for such questions.


I agree totally about the drives being a bit of an anathema. I help people fix older Windows computers, 98 and XP primarily, and I wanted a drive to take with me to use with my netbook. And it works fine for that. I'm just trying to see if I can expand the versatility of the unit.

I don't use Boot Camp at all. That's because my goal, when I bought the iMac, was to run a Windows OS and OS X side by side. That's not possible with Boot Camp. Might be possible if you ran Boot Camp, and then a Windows virtual machine to run OS X. My nephew got his native Windows machine (he has more than one and I don't know the specific OS) to run OS X in a virtual machine.

I have finally learned from the Teac website that the unit should work with OS X 10.2, but there's no further info on versions newer than that. I will be sending Teac a message about newer versions of OS X.

Interestingly enough, when I plug the unit in, something in the Mac knows it's there. The unit shows up in System Profiler, but not on the desktop, with or without a valid DOS floppy installed. So the unit is at least somewhat recognized. And that leads me to believe the problem/solution resides somewhere in Leopard.

And going to the Parallels forums is on the list. This is the first time I've ever had a USB device unrecognized by the Mac. When using a Windows OS under Parallels Desktop for Mac, if I plug a USB device in, Parallels appears to have installed a routine that catches the fact that a new USB device has been plugged in, and asks you if you want to connect the USB device to the Mac or to the virtual OS. But, in this case, that message does not come up. Which leads me to believe that Leopard has to first recognize the USB unit, and then Parallels asks the user how to connect the unit.

And none of this addresses the possibility that Apple completely removed the ability to recognize floppy drives from 10.5.8. And if I can't find a way to contact Apple's tech support, how do I find an answer to this question? After all, the question of USB floppy drives went unanswered in the Leopard thread. πŸ™‚

I guess if the answer was easy to find, I wouldn't be here! πŸ˜€

Oct 13, 2010 3:14 PM in response to a brody

a brody wrote:
Links to ask Apple itself...

Click on the Contact Us link, then on the right hand side of that page Arrange a phone call with an Apple Expert, as well as See all worldwide support telephone numbers.

Yes, that does mean reaching for the phone. Sadly Apple does not have e-mail support except for their Mobileme and iTunes Store services.


Unfortunately, I can't promise a time to be next to the phone. 😟 And a plus with email support, I have a paper trail I can print out and file for future reference.

I'll check it out and see what my options are.

Oct 13, 2010 4:20 PM in response to a brody

a brody wrote:
With skype you can record your phonecalls and just need access to a computer on the internet.


I don't know that much about Skype, but it's not an option for me.

I have satellite internet access, so the connection is both expensive and slow compared to DSL. And I have data download and upload limits. πŸ™‚ But it's still better than dialup! πŸ˜€

I wouldn't have enough need for something like Skype to be able to justify it anyway.

Oct 13, 2010 4:27 PM in response to snowshed

You do not have to have a monthly contract with Skype; I have it installed, use it when necessary, and pay only when I use it to call someone who does not have Skype, usually overseas. Those calls cost a maximum of $0.02 per minute. Calls to someone with Skype are free. You do not need a special telephone; I simply use the built in microphone on the iMac - works like a charm.

Oct 13, 2010 4:40 PM in response to babowa

Barbara Daniels1 wrote:
You do not have to have a monthly contract with Skype; I have it installed, use it when necessary, and pay only when I use it to call someone who does not have Skype, usually overseas. Those calls cost a maximum of $0.02 per minute. Calls to someone with Skype are free. You do not need a special telephone; I simply use the built in microphone on the iMac - works like a charm.


How well does it work with slower than DSL speeds? I know webcams don't work smooth with my system, and when I experimented with online phone calls a few years ago, they didn't work well either.

I sometimes felt like I was part of an old stop action movie! πŸ˜€

Oct 13, 2010 5:19 PM in response to snowshed

+How well does it work with slower than DSL speeds?+

Well, that I do not know - I have cable. I just checked their website and the only reference I could find was "broadband is preferred".

One feature I use before trying to make any call is to use their free "test call" - you get an automated message with the instructions to leave a message which will be played back. So, I test it every time. Since my account is set up, I can't test this to see if it would work before paying, but you might want to try the following:

download and install Skype
establish an account (if I remember correctly, that has to be done for it to work)
before paying anything, use the free test call feature
if it works, you can pay the minimum amount; you'll be able to see the amount decrease as you use it.

Oct 14, 2010 12:57 PM in response to snowshed

Hi, I've just tried my Teac FD-05PUB on my Alu iMac (Late '07 model) under OS X 10.6.4 and it 'just works'. Tried several 1.44MB disks which worked fine. 800KB disks wouldn't work, but I recall they never did.

I booted into BootCamp and under Win7RC: again it 'just worked'.

These disks would have last seen action under OS9 or possibly OS7.5 so haven't been formatted recently.

I have a vague recollection of getting a Kernel Panic when connecting this to a previous OS X Mac but can't recall any details of OS X version, which Mac or circumstances but it was this drive.

Here's some more detail on formatting requirements:

http://the-penciler.blogspot.com/2009/10/of-floppy-disks-hfs-and-snow-leopard.ht ml


My hunch is that Apple would be unable (*thanks elmac!) to answer this question even if you did manage to speak to them; my experience of AppleCare phone support is entirely negative - they only seem to be able to search these forums anyhow.


best


mrtotes
Message was edited by: mrtotes
Message was edited by: mrtotes

Oct 14, 2010 12:54 PM in response to mrtotes

Hi, did you mean "Unable" to answer?
Secondly, when I have called/used AppleHelp they usually respond with "I have never come across this issue before" if so, are they misleading us re the forums? because as you say, they refer to them.
(My hunch is that Apple would be able to answer this question even if you did manage to speak to them; my experience of AppleCare phone support is entirely negative - they only seem to be able to search these forums anyhow)
My last interaction with AppleHelp was regarding the pop up box (iTunes/Internet) - lots of Posts in the iTunes section, Apple Tech "Never heard/seen this issue before" -- ...L

Oct 14, 2010 2:31 PM in response to mrtotes

+My hunch is that Apple would be unable (*thanks elmac!) to answer this question even if you did manage to speak to them; my experience of AppleCare phone support is entirely negative - they only seem to be able to search these forums anyhow.+

Are you referring to Tier 1 tech support? On the rare occasions where I've had to call, I've always managed to get past the first tier to the 2nd ("experts") in a relatively very short time; at that level, they appear to know what they are talking about and the expertise and general "help factor" are at a much higher level.

Oct 14, 2010 5:53 PM in response to mrtotes

This is sort of a "reply to all", as it is inclusive of the Apple Care replies posted to mrtotes' post.

I'm not minding the comments and experiences being expressed about Apple Care. I consider it educational, indicating what I might run into if I should ever use it. So, if anyone else wishes to make similar comments, please feel free. πŸ™‚


mrtotes wrote:

Hi, I've just tried my Teac FD-05PUB on my Alu iMac (Late '07 model) under OS X 10.6.4 and it 'just works'. Tried several 1.44MB disks which worked fine. 800KB disks wouldn't work, but I recall they never did.


I'm glad to have a 2nd confirmation that the drive should work. I got the same answer from Teac, it should work under 10.5.8.
The drive should work with Mac 1.4, PC formatted 720 and 1.44 floppies under OS 8.6 - 9.2. This is all from Teac paperwork I downloaded from their site.
I own a PowerMac 6400 w/ OS 9.1 installed, and when I first tried the drive on it, the drive failed. But, I was double checking that this afternoon, and discovered after a lot of reboots of the 6400, the drive did not work because of the 4 port hub I was using. It's a powered hub, and I'm currently missing the power supply. I've got one ordered. Once I removed the hub, and learned to sit on my hands while the slow old 6400 did it's thing, the drive worked perfectly.
So, my thinking that the drive may be faulty is probably wrong. There's something wrong with this iMac. But I suspect software issues, not hardware issues, as the unit shows up in System Profiler. It doesn't matter where on the USB system, except for the low power port on the keyboard.
The Teac drive cannot read 800k Mac formatted floppies. To read those, you need a drive with a variable speed motor, and since the drive doesn't have this, it cannot read those floppies. More on this later on in the post.

I booted into BootCamp and under Win7RC: again it 'just worked'.

These disks would have last seen action under OS9 or possibly OS7.5 so haven't been formatted recently.

I have a vague recollection of getting a Kernel Panic when connecting this to a previous OS X Mac but can't recall any details of OS X version, which Mac or circumstances but it was this drive.


I may have posted this earlier, but the drive works fine on a native multiboot Windows computer with XP Pro and Vista, both completely kept up to date. And on my netbook with Win7 Starter.

Here's some more detail on formatting requirements:>

http://the-penciler.blogspot.com/2009/10/of-floppy-disks-hfs-and-snow-leopard.ht ml




That's a nice article, but there are a couple of errors.

If my memory is correct, a lot of the earlier versions of System X could read and write PC formatted floppies. Not sure when it actually started. In those days, I was an Atari user, still have a couple to set up, and the Atari floppies were identical to the PC floppies except they were missing a couple of bytes on a formatted disk. Write those bytes manually or with one of numerous 3rd party utilities that were available, and any PC could read it. In fact, with some of those utilities, you could format a 720k floppy with over 800k of space that the PC could read and write to, but couldn't create. The DOS commands to create them were there, but I suspect the BIOS was modified on the motherboard to prevent it. I used to really irritate a PC fanatic friend of mine by creating all kinds of stuff on my Atari's that his PC could use but not create. LOL

In fact, I actually had System 6 running on one of my Atari's using a hardware emulator.

Unfortunately, I've forgotten my HFS related drive formatting education. 😟

In the reply section of the blog, I consider Andrew Lazarus' reply to be incorrect. As I remember it (LOL)... The PC method of formatting a floppy jams the same amount of data in each track, regardless of linear length of the track. Apple believed that data integrity would be better if each segment in a track had the same linear length, regardless of which track it was located on. The answer was a variable speed motor, and in actual formatting of the tracks, tracks 1 & 2 were formatted identically, 3 & 4 were identical, 5 & 6 were identical, etc. The speed of the motor changed for each pair of tracks. At some point, when you got to a track further towards the outer edge of the floppy, you could add an additional sector or two. Consequently, you eventually ended up storing more data on a Mac floppy.

Why this idea was not continued when they went to 1.4 floppies, I don't know, but I would hazard a guess it was to make things easier to being compatible with the PC floppies.


My hunch is that Apple would be unable (*thanks elmac!) to answer this question even if you did manage to speak to them; my experience of AppleCare phone support is entirely negative - they only seem to be able to search these forums anyhow.




I wouldn't be surprised either. As I posted earlier about the nearest Apple store, unless I find someone working there that is starting to turn grey, I usually know more general stuff about computers than they do. They know their product, but get past that, and the knowledge is pretty sparse. 😟

USB external floppy disk drives

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