how do I READ and transfer data from 15-year-old macintosh floppy
disks to modern media? I have a bunch of 3.5" disks created on
Macintosh II and maybe other computers that came immediately after Mac
II. A lot, but not all, say 'MF-2DD' or 'MFD-2DD' if that gives you
some idea of the vintage. I am on a PC and I tried several "Mac to PC"
disk readers, and none of them worked. This included TransMac,
MacDisk, and HFVExplorer. Though I am on a PC, I am willing to work on
a Mac if that's what it takes to get the data.

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Request for Question Clarification by maniac-ga on 02 Jun 2006 19:14 PDT

Hello Foofaraw,

Reading the old Mac floppies requires a "SuperDrive" on a Macintosh
desktop or laptop system. This is because it is likely the floppies
were not formatted in a PC compatible form (was possible on a Mac, but
not always done). The newer Mac systems however, do not have a floppy
drive (CD or CD/DVD ROM only) but some could use an USB drive such as
  http://www.macobserver.com/newreviews/bt/99/superdiskusb/superdiskusb.html
What kind of Mac system do you have access to?

  --Maniac

Hello, well I'm not sure if the type of files you have on the MAC
disks are document files, but here is a website that can provide
conversion to PC (Microsoft Word, etc..) format if this is what you
need.
Let me know if I've been of any help.

http://www.luxsoft.demon.co.uk/lux/bconv.html

By do not work do you mean the PC just doesn't see them or do you mean
the files are not openable? I suspect the former and that is because
the disks are likely in   Mac format which is different than PC
format. Later Macs could format and read PC 1.4 Meg floppies but not
the 700K ones that were common to the earliest Mac II's. The best
solution might be to find an older Mac and copy all your files to it's
hard drive, then write them to a CD using an externally connected CD
burner or e-mail them to yourself on the PC.

I agree with alan7002-ga, you may have problems even reading the disk
in any recent mac and PCs are out of the question. However, i'd bet a
Mac that can read the disks, can't write to a CD. I would look for an
old Powerbook or all in one mac with some kind of networking, they all
hook up to _each other_ but you will want one with a modem or an
ethernet port OR and old mac and one running up to OS 9 and an Mac
Printer/modem cord to connect the two together. If you get the
powerbook, you connect it to a newer mac with scsi ports and a scsi
cable.

Easy peasy if you've got some money to spend!

Buy a 'catweasel'. The 'catweasel' is a universale Floppy disk
controller. It plugs into a PCI port and connects to a standard PC
floppy disk drive. It will read virtually all known formats of floppy
disk. Including DD/HD disks from Acorns, Amigas and Classic Macintosh
computers.
A quick 'goog;e' will tell you where you can buy one for around $40.

Depending on what is on the discs, you may be wasting your time trying
to transfer them to a PC.  The older macs have applications that can
be transferred from mac to mac without installing, but if you have an
old document written in an old application, you will most likely not
be able to just bring it over and access it.  If you have jpegs or
tiffs, these should transfer easily with transmac, but keep in mind
that PC needs to know the extension to be able to open it.  (such as
.jpg)  If you have the ability to email attachments from your old mac,
that is another way.  I know I used to use an older version of AOL for
mac (like version 3) that worked with an old MAC SE.  I also got a CD
burner with with TOASTER software, Also, IOMEGA ZIP discs will allow
you to load all your data onto like a 100mb zip disc. (You can find
old zips on ebay).  Then those zip discs can be opened on a PC with a
mac soft application.

Some of the programs you mentioned would work to read the disks on a
pc, if you were using high density Mac disks(Basilisk II will actually
give you a Mac desktop on your PC, where you can run old Mac programs
and load the old documents) but the disks you mentioned are only
double density. You need an older Mac to transfer the files to either
high density floppies, or some other form of media. I am a collector
of old Macs, and if you really need those files, I could move them off
the disks and email then all over as a zip file.