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floppy 5 1/4 disks

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Original Message
Name: roopal
Date: December 9, 2003 at 23:19:18 Pacific
Subject: floppy 5 1/4 disks
OS: win xp home
CPU/Ram: pent 4 1.6 ghz,256 ram
Comment:

i need help with getting a program from
5 1/4 floppies to 3 1/2 floppies.
i am a psychology master/phd student and was sent (by an acedemic centre) a program to administer testing for children.
BUT the program is on 5 1/4 floppies written with apple software.
how can i get that to 3 1/2 inch floppies that i can use on my cpu with win XP home?
is there any hope for me?i need all the
help i can get.thank a bunch.



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Response Number 1
Name: x86
Date: December 10, 2003 at 00:13:08 Pacific
Reply: (edit)

You need a conversion program, Apple format disks differently, you will probably need a MAC with both size drives so you can format a 3.5 floppy in DOS format on the Mac then transfer data across from the 5.25. MACS have a program called PC Exchange to read PC floppies.


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Response Number 2
Name: wired
Date: December 10, 2003 at 02:08:18 Pacific
Reply: (edit)

roopal,

x86 is correct about the Apple disks being formatted differently. However there are a number of programs that allow you to read Mac files on a PC. I'd burn them to CD instead of going to 3 1/2 though or you'll be in the same boat in a few years. My last 2 PC's didn't even come with a 3 1/2 drive since most OS's now boot from CD. Your biggest concern is finding someone with an old 5 1/4 drive. Remember floppies are magnetically charged and do go bad over time so there's a good chance they've lost their charge by now but if they're still readable get them to your harddrive or a CD ASAP. Try your local computer repair shops or even one of the Photo-developing shops in my town does this. Outside of that, start asking everyone you know if they have an old computer in their basement that has a 5 1/4 drive in it and temporarily hook it up to a computer that's running Win98 or older as i doubt your WinXP would know what the hell a 5 1/4 drive was! <lol> Then grab some Mac reading software and you're off to the races. Good luck! ;o)

ciao,
wired


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Response Number 3
Name: x86
Date: December 10, 2003 at 04:06:37 Pacific
Reply: (edit)

5.25 drives can be made to work under XP, though believe it will not format older than the 1.2MB format, 1.44 format on 3.5, but will read the disks even 360K

http://www.macdisk.com/mden.php3


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Response Number 4
Name: James_D
Date: January 8, 2004 at 13:37:32 Pacific
Reply: (edit)

I have files on 5.25" floppies, indeed I just copied some onto 5.25" floppies, from a PC being scrapped.

My problem is now getting them on a hard disk. I cannot get XP to work with either of my two old 5.25" drives. I assume this is because the XP floppy drivers are not compatible with the 5.25" drives.

Any idea where I could get drivers?

Thanks

James


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