Please, please keep in mind: there's physical floppy drives, and then controllers, and then diskettes. Physical drive itself - the drive just reads and writes the data given, and moves the heads around. Formats are produced by a drive controller and software, not by the Formats establish patters of where data goes on a diskette, and the details of the patterns of data. 'Format' for floppy disks, means how the individual bits are written and read. Question: how are old Macintosh floppy disks 'written' and why can't an old PC floppy drive read them? Very different diskette formats, controllers, drives But knowing 'it won't work' doesn't require one to know these details. Interface hardware, the binary level of disk formats, and have some background in digital electronics. To understand these issues, one has to know about the binary level of drive Generally speaking, NO Windows PC can read and write Mac format diskettes, - not without additional, specialized hardware or hardware 'tricks'. Many (but not all) older Macs with floppy drives, can read and write PC/Windows diskettes. And there were floppy drives before either the Apple Mac or 'Apple' and 'Windows' have veryĭifferent hardware and software 'standards'. Misleading, especially when comparing Apple Macintosh products Which could be used in a modern Windows PC? Question: Can I hook a Mac drive to my Windows computer to read Mac disks? What is the interface for the Mac 'high density' 1.4M 3.5' floppy drives? Are they a standard interface This document was last updated April 14 2022.

I have a specific Web page about non-standard floppy controllers for old or recent Windows/Linux PC's, to read non-MS-DOS diskettes. I sell and describe Apple Macintosh floppy drives on the linked Web page. Also, I cover floppy disk drive technology on my Tech information on floppy disks drives and media. Go there to read specific answers to specific questions with brief commentary. This is a question about Apple Macs which I also cover in my How can I read old Mac diskettes on my modern Windows (Linux) PC? or on an old Mac? Or can I 'connect' Apple floppy drives to my Windows computer to read Mac diskettes?' Windows vs Macintosh - floppy drives and diskettes

Write to a mac formatted floppy disk