using external floppy disc drive to tranfer

[darvidis]

I have been using a Atari STE1040 with Notator music program for over 20 years. On my old Pc with xp, it had a floppy disc drive. I used to format floppy dics to 720k on Atari and then transfer midifiles from Pc to disk. My new PC doesn't have floppy disc drive. Will an external drive allow me to do this. Is there a recommended unit that works, no fuss. Please somebody help me. I'm desperate.

[AtariZoll]

Any USB floppy drive capable of handling 720K floppies will be good.

[Miguel]

I haven't had any problems reading or writing 720K DOS floppies using an imation USB floppy drive (model D353FUE) with Windows XP......although I tend to format 720K DOS floppies on my Yamaha RM1X rather than the Atari or PC because it's more straight forward.

Do you still have your Atari?

[BoNuS]

Well not all USB drive are equal good in creating Atari floppy's. I have good experience with TEAC drives (some models of USB Dell) and bad with YE-data (brand x). The TEAC formats under Win 7 still good DD format, but the YE doesn't really work good on DD and even seems to have problems with HD formats. Try to find an USB drive that works for you Native drives (with 34 pins socket on motherboard) under XP are highly recommended. Just my2cents

MS doesn't really support DD under Win7 anymore but most of the times it works okay. Just use CMD line and then FORMAT A: /T:80 /N:9

[spiny]

99% of USB floppy drives will work fine. no need to mess about with command lines on the pc to format the disks, just format them on the ST.

[Miguel]

Still it's a good idea to inform people of the command line in case anyone needs it, like say someone has acquired an STFM they might need to use the command line if only to be able to DOS format one floppy with the DOS formatting software to DOS format more floppies on the Atari, I don't use it myself but I have it written down on my disk box just in case.

[spiny]

Still it's a good idea to inform people of the command line in case anyone needs it, like say someone has acquired an STFM they might need to use the command line if only to be able to DOS format one floppy with the DOS formatting software to DOS format more floppies on the Atari, I don't use it myself but I have it written down on my disk box just in case.

the Desktop format option formats disks DOS compatable. I've been using this method for years and never had any issues.

[joska]

What spiny said. If you just want to use the floppy to transfer data between the STE and a PC, get any USB floppy drive and format the disks on the Atari.

However, disk drives and floppies are getting old and worn by now, so unless you prefer floppies for nostalgic reasons, I'd rather get a PARCP-USB or maybe a floppy emulator.

[ijor]

the Desktop format option formats disks DOS compatable. I've been using this method for years and never had any issues.

This depends on the TOS version. The desktop format on older TOS versions is not fully PC compatible. But there are many alternate formatters available. If we are talking about an STE, as seems to the case of the OP here, then all TOS versions should work.

[Miguel]

the Desktop format option formats disks DOS compatable. I've been using this method for years and never had any issues.

This depends on the TOS version. The desktop format on older TOS versions is not fully PC compatible. But there are many alternate formatters available. If we are talking about an STE, as seems to the case of the OP here, then all TOS versions should work.

Correct.

[serano33]

Well not all USB drive are equal good in creating Atari floppy's. I have good experience with TEAC drives (some models of USB Dell) and bad with YE-data (brand x). The TEAC formats under Win 7 still good DD format, but the YE doesn't really work good on DD and even seems to have problems with HD formats. Try to find an USB drive that works for you N ative drives (with 34 pins socket on motherboard) under XP are highly recommended. Just my2cents HostGator DreamHost Bluehost

MS doesn't really support DD under Win7 anymore but most of the times it works okay. Just use CMD line and then FORMAT A: /T:80 /N:9

99% of USB floppy drives will work fine. no need to mess about with command lines on the pc to format the disks, just format them on the ST.

[wongck]

Some information on the wiki is old and goes to missing external pages... but at least it docuemnted there.
The mirror read only version is here:
https://temlib.org/AtariForumWiki/index ... akerNet.29

Needs updating once the original is up & running.

[serano33]

the Desktop format option formats disks DOS compatable. I've been using this method for years and never had any issues.

This depends on the TOS version. The desktop format on older TOS versions is not fully PC compatible. But there are many alternate formatters available. If we are talking about an STE, as seems to the case of the OP here, then all TOS versions should work.

Correct.

the Desktop format option formats disks DOS compatable. I've been using this method for years and never had any issues.

[joska]

With TOS 1.04 and later this is correct. Previous TOS-versions does not create DOS-compatible floppies.

[6BQ5]

I have Windows 10 and a 1040 STe. My Teac USB floppy drive can format 720k floppies from a DOS windows. The floppy is perfectly readable on my 1040 STe. No mess, no fuss.

[serano33]

Well not all USB drive are equal good in creating Atari floppy's. I have good experience with TEAC drives (some models of USB Dell) and bad with YE-data (brand x). The TEAC formats under Win 7 still good DD format, but the YE doesn't really work good on DD and even seems to have problems with HD formats. Try to find an USB drive that works for you Native drives (with 34 pins socket on motherboard) under XP are highly recommended. Just my2cents HostGator DreamHost Bluehost

MS doesn't really support DD under Win7 anymore but most of the times it works okay. Just use CMD line and then FORMAT A: /T:80 /N:9

[darvidis]

I have got my floppy disc to finally accept transferred midi files, but now after the Atari accepts disc, it comes up as a bad file and wont work. Old discs still working fine. Have formatted and tried so many other discs, but wont work.

[tzok]

You have to use DD (720 kB) disks, and format them on Atari. HD (1440 kB) disks work very unreliably with DD drives. Much more convenient way is to use UltraSatan, CosmosEx (SD card) or NetUSBee (USB or Ethernet), or at least GOTEK HxC.