Hello
Does anyone know of an FDD for a mavericks mac? I would like to create boot disks for an old mac. Is this a good method to consider? I am not sure how else to go about this. If there is an alternative, whatever it might be, please let me know.
I apologise for posting here but this relates to older machines in a way.
Thanks in advance.
I don't believe such an animal exists. Depending on which specific model you have you can look for boot disk sets on eBay or Google or Amazon. You may also find an older external drive you can use on it.
Depending on how far back you want to go with boot floppies - you may need to go back very far indeed. An 800k disk cannot be created with a USB-attached disk. The only drive that will be capable of that feat will be built into a Mac. To put it another way... if you want to create an 800k disk, you need a Mac that has a built-in FDD.
Interesting.
What I do have is a very old Apple CD ROM, it's either an Apple CD 150 or an Apple CD 300e. I would have to unbox it to verify but might I be able to create a boot DVD? Where can I find which macs are able to boot from DVD but I suppose more importantly, can I use the current Disk Utility on Mavericks or 10.6 or 10.4 or 10.5 to create a bootable CD for older systems?
The machine I do have that needs to go through this is an old powerbook 2400. To be fair to you and anyone replying I should read the owner's manual. The system is being delivered from Japan and the OS is in Japanese so I would like to get the machine running in English.
I found a resource by a former Apple employee who states 10.5.8 was last OS X that could both read and write, I will go over it for now.
To make a boot CD you would need a boot CD. If the computer is that old it may not run OS X. You will need Mac OS 9 or earlier would be my guess.
Making a bootable CD for an Old Word ROM machine is not easy, and your Mavericks machine will not do it. Further, you will need some special software - take a look at this post about making a boot CD:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=18752329#post18752329
The original system for a PowerBook 2400c/180 was 7.6.1. Other supported systems (according to Apple's technical specifications) were 8, 8.1, 8.5, 8.6 and 9. You would need to purchase an appropriate Apple system CD. Ensure that it is a retail disc (for all models), not a disc for a certain (other) machine.
You can use one of the Apple CD-ROM drives above, providing that you have the proper HDI-30 cable. See the manual for details about connecting SCSI devices and about booting from a CD.
If necessary, and if the already installed operating system is working (and you can navigate the Japanese menus), you should at least be able to create a Disk Tools PPC floppy on the PowerBook. Use the Disk Copy 6.3.3 program (the Make a Floppy command under the Utilities menu) for this. I assume that you have the external floppy disk drive for the PowerBook.
www.info.apple.com/support/oldersoftwarelist.html
One may also want to try to modify a Disk Tools PPC to hold CD-ROM software, thus allowing a CD to be read when the computer is running from the floppy disk system.
Additionally, since the computer in question has PC Card slots, an inexpensive PC Card adapter for CompactFlash and a CompactFlash memory card can be very useful for file transfers. In certain PowerBook models, such a CompactFlash card (reformatted to Mac) can even act as a startup disk (if it has an appropriate system folder).
Jan
Hi Jan
Thank you very much for the helpful answer. I am now waiting for the PB 2400 to arrive from the local post office. It shouldn't be much longer.
I very much appreciate your reply and the time you took to offer your advice.
Kindest regards
Alex
Floppy Disk Drive for Mavericks
