MacBook Air won't recognize external floppy disc drive

Question

MacBook Air won't recognize external floppy disc drive

I have a bunch of floppy discs I want to look at. I bought a Lacie external floppy disc drive and plugged it into my MacBook Air via a USB cable. The external drive's power came on, but it is nowhere to be seen or found on my Air. I did a Spotlight search under "Lacie" and "floppy" and came up with nothing.

I tried the same thing with an older desktop (c. 2007) and the same thing happened.

Can anyone help? I'm wondering if the Mac gods are secretly laughing at me as I try to look at data from an obsolete medium. Thanks.

Posted on Nov 24, 2015 11:44 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 24, 2015 12:29 PM in response to James Snedeker

Seems I've solved the mystery… the disc I was trying look at is a double-density disc. I found that when I tried a single-density disc, all worked fine--the icon popped up on the desktop and I was able to observe the contents.

Now… how to look at double-density discs?

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Answer 2

John Galt

Level 10

141,150 points

Nov 24, 2015 3:18 PM in response to James Snedeker

That's a function of the drive, which yours may or may not have. If it does, it may be broken. If you want to purchase another one, they're very inexpensive. I can't find any that do not have mixed reviews, at best. However, you have to consider the age of the floppy discs that people might be trying to use. They don't last forever.

Double sided floppy discs have a formatted capacity of 1.44 MB, single sided are 720 KB. Very old Macintoshes used 800 KB and 400 KB capacities, respectively.

You might get more assistance in the Older Hardware forum.

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