Unreadable floppies on a Performa 5300?

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One Brain Cell Author

Level 4

2,167 points

Unreadable floppies on a Performa 5300?

Hi all,

I'm trying to install some software on a Performa 5300. So far I have tried three programs:

- Lemmings

- Sim City 2000, and;

- Space Quest IV.

The Mac reports that all the disks are in an unreadable format. I know these disks work, so is it simply the case that this software is incompatible with the OS? Its running 7.5.1.

Or is it that the floppy drive itself is knackered? I have vague memories of going into the System preferences on past machines, locating the drive prefs and trashing them, but I couldn't find any such drive prefs on this computer.

Any ideas very much appreciated.🙂

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014), OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), 16Gb, 256Gb SSD

Posted on Feb 15, 2016 2:45 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Jan Hedlund

Level 7

24,301 points

Feb 15, 2016 6:48 AM in response to One Brain Cell

Hi,

>The Mac reports that all the disks are in an unreadable format.

The floppy drive in a Performa 5300 is capable of handling (400K)800K and 1.44 MB Mac-formatted disks, so the format as such should not be a problem. Have you tried reading the disks after booting the Performa 5300 with Extensions Off?

>I know these disks work

How did you test the disks? Are they DD or HD diskettes?

>is it simply the case that this software is incompatible with the OS? Its running 7.5.1.

System 7.5.1 is able to handle the formats mentioned above. If the software on the disks would be incompatible, the floppies should at least be recognised and readable; the problem would appear in connection with an installation.

>Or is it that the floppy drive itself is knackered?

Possibly. Have you tried formatting and writing to another diskette on the Performa 5300 itself? Is it then readable? Have you tried to format and write to another diskette on another computer? Readable on the Performa 5300? It could even be a Windows PC, just for a test? The Performa can read/write PC-formatted 720K (DD) and 1.44 MB (HD) floppies, in addition to the aforementioned Mac formats, providing that the PC Exchange control panel is installed and active.

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Answer 2

One Brain Cell Author

Level 4

2,167 points

Feb 15, 2016 6:49 AM in response to Jan Hedlund

Hi Jan,

Wow, I remember you from years back! Didn’t we start off in the iMac forums about 15 years ago?

I can’t remember what the disks are as I don’t have them to hand at the moment. They are the original disks the games on, which were published around 1991-94 if that helps.

I haven’t tried formatting and writing to another floppy, but I will give it a try. I have some blanks, so will try saving a Claris Works doc or something as a test.

The blank discs I have to test with are AT&T branded; IBM formatted 2HD disks.

Someone recently donated to me an old iMac external floppy drive (its coloured either Bondi Blue or the same blue that would fit sitting on top of a blue and white G3). I have an old iBook 466SE running OS9.2.2 that I could try using as a bridge to, format, transfer and write things to.

Incidentally, the Performa is sitting in a Computer museum and it doesn’t have much interest at the moment because it’s not really doing anything. So I wanted to try some titles on it to see if the visitors stop and play rather than move along.

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Answer 3

Allan Jones

Level 9

78,788 points

Feb 16, 2016 6:12 PM in response to One Brain Cell

Hey! We are both Class of 2001! Actually I started in late 1999 in the Beige G3 forums but some ancient change in forum software reset a lot of "joined" dates to 2001.

Perchance do you have a floppy drive cleaning disk? Remember? They had paper or cloth where the magnetic media would normally be. You put a few drops of head-cleaning fluid on the cleaning material and stuck the entire thing in the drive and let it run.

Floppy cleaners be hard to find one today but floppy drives were well-exposed to the environment and could get really dirty. Several old Mac models actually pulled as much cooling air in through the floppy slot as they did from the regular intake vents. That ran a lot of dust across the drive head.

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Answer 4

One Brain Cell Author

Level 4

2,167 points

Feb 17, 2016 2:26 PM in response to Allan Jones

Allan! Hey I remember you too. There were a few Alan’s around at the time. Alan Titmuss was another one, I wonder if he still frequents these boards?

Now a floppy drive cleaning disk I haven’t seen since my old Amiga days, but I’m sure the Museum has one somewhere. I’ll give that a go, and thanks for the suggestion! If they don’t have one I’m sure Amazon may have something, they still sell 3.5” disks and the like.

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