24/02/2015
Do you have older floppies but your newer PC doesn’t have a floppy drive?
Go to your local computer store and get a portable USB Floppy Drive. These will let you use all standard floppy disks, 720kB to 1.44mb. You can then read/write/copy to or from your floppy disks to your PC, or your PC to the floppy disk via a computer USB port.
But what of you can only obtain 1.44mb floppy disks, yet your Yamaha, Roland, etc., device will only take 720kB floppy disks?
Block the bottom hole (the one without the read/write protector slider) on the 1.44mb floppy disk with tape over both sides (insulation tape or something that won’t fall off easily). Then format** that as a 720Kb disk. Don’t ever let the tape come off. You know have a formatted 720Kb disk that will then work in your Yamaha, Roland, etc., device that only uses 720Kb disks.
If your operating system will not allow you to format a 720Kb disk, try using your midiplayer device to format the disk, or go back into DOS on your PC with the C Command Prompt and use a DOS command to format. The following are known to work with a Targus USB Floppy drive in Win 98, Win ME, Win 7 and Win 7 VM ... Desktops and Laptops.
format a:
format a: /f:720
format a: /t:80 /n:9
a: is your floppy designation. Your system may say it’s b: Use b: instead of a: in the command line. Most importantly, LOOK for the floppy designation. Do NOT format the C: or any other drive(s), only the disk in the USB Floppy Drive.
As computer configurations differ, we do not guarantee the above format command will be successful with all operating systems. If you're unsure or hesitant of how to do any of this, contact your computer supplier and ask them if the USB Floppy you intend to buy from them will work as a 720kb formatter on your operating system.
** Remember than when you format a disk, EVERYTHING will be erased from that disk.
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