Converting old Mac Word floppy discs to PC Word

Question

I used to have a Mac in the '90s. I have about 10 floppy disks with mostly Word docs that I want to convert to PC format. I bought an external floppy drive from Best Buy (Dynex) and connected it to a friend's Powerbook. His Powerbook recognized the floppy drive but not the disks or anything on the disks. Called Dynex support and went to their web site. No additional drivers were available (not even sure if that was problem). The manual mentioned something about 1.4 meg or highes disks, but mine are 1.0 meg (not even sure if that was problem.) Anyway, I'm at a loss as to how to proceed. I took floppy back to Best Buy.
Dave

Answer 1

Judy,
At this point, it would be very easy to get distracted from your original task.
You stated above:
"I've got a lot more than 10 discs at stake - figure out a way to transfer that data - from a MAC Classic II to a Pentium III?
- save the data in Rich Text Format on an IBM disc and it will translate - but that's not the problem.
The problem is that the MAC forces me to reformat the disc before it will allow me to use the disc and
once it's reformatted the Pentium will not read it unless I reformat it there and that would erase the data on the disc.
Any solutions? "
You might be tempted to focus all your energies on fixing the Classic II and forget your original task.
Let's take one step at a time. Restart your Mac while zapping the PRAM (post back if you need instructions). If it continues to act up, forget it for now. Your data is on the floppies, not your hard drive.
If your Mac starts up again, you might consider getting a zip drive or an external hard drive and installing a newer system on it. The newer system will recognize IBM disks using PC Exchange. Otherwise, find a newer replacement that is set up to do what you need to do.
Meanwhile, there are some fundamental questions raised by your comments. You said that they are IBM disks. Why does your Pentium III not read them? What computer formatted those disks in the first place? How did the data get saved to those disks?
Could it be that the 1.4 disks were inserted into a Mac with an 800k drive and it was too old to know that the disk was a newer 1.4? In that case, it is actually a Mac disk that the P III will not recognize and an improperly used Mac 1.4 disk that was formatted to Mac 800k. Then a newer Mac will not recognize it either.
By taping over the HD indicator hole on a 1.4k disk, you can insert it into a newer Mac with a Super Drive and the drive will think it is an 800k disk and 'change gears,' so to speak, to read the data tracks that are too wide for a 1,400k drive. Keep in mind that the 1.4 drive invented by Sony is really a 2,000k drive but not used to its full potential. The tracks can be read wide or narrow, variable speed or fixed speed.
There is much more history than you may want to learn. The bottom line is that there is more information required about those disks than what we know so far.
Apple File Exchange did not kill your computer but old age probably is having an effect. When you tried to access the floppy drive, AFE may have crashed because it did not know how to handle a system error caused by a dead floppy drive.
Are you in a location where you could obtain another newer Mac for a modest price? Your goal is to save data from floppies, not save a dying computer that is easily replaced. Where are you in Canada? The last individual to post with a similar dilema lived in Vancouver, could get to Seattle, WA where G3 sell for $5 and found lots of alternatives .
To recap, what computer created the disks? Are those disks truely IBM or just labeled that way? Were they created on an older Mac and then moved to a newer Mac? The facts do not add up for a Classic II to create a disk and then not recognize the disk unless the drive is failing. Time for some detective work.
Ji˜m