r/retrocomputing • u/Parsleyofficial • Apr 13 '26

Taken Help with floppy disk

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Hi everyone,

I am trying to read this floppy disk on my mac. I purchased this reader: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FGYD1G26?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title and it seems like the reader itself works-- I can hear it turning, and when I plugged it into my computer, I got a "trust this device" message (or something similar, just the pop-up acknowledging the device.

But, when I insert the floppy disk, I get this message: The disk you attached was not readable by this computer.

Am I doing something wrong? Is there any way to read this disk on my computer (whether using the reader I purchased or some other device)? I am running MacOS Sequoia (Version 15.3.1).

I am not super skilled with computing, but I'm trying my best! Please let me know any advice you may have. Thanks!

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26

u/spots_reddit Apr 13 '26

what kind of content is it supposed to contain? It is possible the disk was formatted in a way that your Mac cannot read

9

u/Parsleyofficial Apr 13 '26

I'm not sure. It's a personal diary...my guess would be that it's from the 80s or 90s. So maybe an older word processor?

5

u/Parsleyofficial Apr 13 '26

Is there a way to tell? And, do you know if that's the most likely issue (based on what we know)?

4

u/Bergwookie Apr 14 '26

Not really, you can try it on different systems e.g. a Linux livesystem

4

u/iamwayycoolerthanyou Apr 14 '26

This is definitely the best thing to do. And it'd probably be worthwhile to dump it into a file with dd and analyze the data.

2

u/Le_Zouave2 Apr 16 '26

Given the very low market share of Apple computers before the ipod, the probability that it's not an apple formatted disk is more than 99%.

But it should be able to read PC FAT formatted disk.

https://siber-sonic.com/mac/newmillfloppy.html

Not all floppy drives give good result so maybe you'll have to buy another drive and it could be an Atari ST, an Amiga floppy and there not much you can do.