So I purchased a couple of 5.25 disc drives model A9M0104's and am waiting for those to arrive. I have all my 5.25 floppies from my Apple //e and want to use them on my 2GS. 3.5" drives. I'm looking at one model A9M0106. Just want to know what discs should I be using for that drive? I have a lot of my old 3.5" DD and HD discs still from the early PC days when everyone used to use them. I know they have MS-DOS files on them. Can I use them on the 2gs? Do I simply format them like we used to do on the //e's? How do I format them on the 2gs? Any good pdf's to read regarding this? I'm new to the 2gs and still remember most of my //e commands.
Can anyone point me to where I can find this info? I ordered a cable to use ADTPRO to transfer files to the floppies and it looks like i'm going to have to bootstrap the thing to get it going.
Can anyone recommend which discs I would need to get the machine up and running? A utility set would be great as well as a system master set for 3.5" floppies as well please.
Anything else required to get this machine up and running?
Thanks.
3.5" floppies. Can I use older PC formatted ones?
October 13, 2014 - 5:23pm
#1
3.5" floppies. Can I use older PC formatted ones?
this is just my own experience. never had a apple that used 3.5 drive while growing up. when i did get a 2gs with 3.5 i just used the 3.5 floppies i had lying around from when i had a pc that used them. they can be formatted and used on the 2gs without any immediate problems. I have read that the info does deteriorate from the floppy gradually but i have not encountered that. I mainly use the 3.5 to re-install gsos or get dsk images using atdpro.
Use DD 3.5 disks only, as HD disks will likely be unreliable. You can format them from GSOS or from System Utilities or Filer.
You can format HD disks as double-sided. Just put some tape over the hole. If they're unreliable, so what? I've got HD disks that I formatted to use with my IIgs a decade ago and they're still fine.
But of course if you have genuine double-sided disks, use those first. I won't argue there.