How to Use Mac Floppies in a PC

While Apple Macintosh computers are "smart" enough to be able to read and write PC-formatted floppy disks, PCs are not on their own. However, there are ways to use floppies from one system to the other if you need to.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Format floppies on the Mac for the PC. If you know floppies are going to be used on a PC, this is the simplest way to make them work. On the Mac, go to the "Applications" folder. Then, find the "Utilities" folder and open "Disk Utility."

2. Insert the floppy disk to be formatted. Select the icon of the floppy---which usually will come up as "Untitled" if it hasn't been formatted previously---and go to the "Erase" button at the top of the Disk Utility window. Select "MS-DOS" in the pull-down menu beside the "Volume Format" option. Then title the disk and format it.

3. Use the floppy back and forth between the Mac and PC. Once formatted for the PC, the floppy will be readable by the PC. It also will be readable by the Mac. The icon usually will appear as a floppy with a big "PC" on it to distinguish it from standard Mac floppies.

4. Get third-party software if you want to read Mac-formatted floppies on the PC to transfer data. Use this option if there already is data on the Mac floppy that you need to transfer. Such programs as TransMac, Transfer Pro and HFS Explorer (a free program) can be used to read Mac discs in the PC.

Resources

• TransMac software
• HFS Explorer
• Transfer Pro