Low-cost Imation Ls-120 Superdisk For Mac
I have been fiddling around, on and off, with LS-120 drives during the past 2 years. They are amazing devices of an age gone. Actually I got my first LS-120 drive in 2003, but I had rarely used it until 2009, when I archived my regular floppy disks In this topic I will share, with other members of this forum, some of my experience with LS-120 drives. Portions of my postings in this topic, especially my experimentations, may fall into the realm of the esoteric, in the sense of: private, not-intended-for-publication. So for more information in some matters you may wish to contact me by PM. Here some points I may eventually cover: - What can an LS-120 drive be used for in 2011?
Sep 10, 2017 I have an LS-120 drive which is dying (it won't record any more and makes a screeching noise as well) so I'm looking for a replacement drive. The link to ebay you posted only lists drives for Mac.
- Toolbox (good LS-120 software and hardware) - The awful quality of LS-120 drives: Dead and dying drives - The awful quality of LS-120 disks: Destined to die - Formatting software for LS-120 drives - Review of LS-120 drives (Parallel, PCMCIA, USB, ATAPI) - LS-120 drives under DOS - Manufacturer-provided USB/PCMCIA drivers of LS-120 drives vs. Nusb/Microsoft-provided drivers under Win98 - Only with DOS or Win9x: What canNOT be done under WinXP? - Creating and restoring images of LS-120 disks - Can bulk-erased LS-120 disks be reformatted? - Secured LS-120 disks - Esoteric: UDF formatted 720kB and 1.44MB floppy disks - Esoteric: UDF formatted LS-120 disks - Esoteric: Forensic software and UDF formatted LS-120 disks - LS-240 drives TOOLBOX 1) Imation SuperDisk USB for Mac Drive, Model No. SD USB M3 - best choice as 1st LS-120 drive, is fast, works fine under Win98 and WinXP, requires a power supply brick, works fine with 720KB and 1.44MB floppies - best choice as a regular external floppy drive for computers which don't have a built-in 1.44MB floppy drive - best choice as a 2nd floppy drive, e.g.
For making binary compares, etc. Of 2 floppies, as with Beyond Compare 2) Imation Model No. 11795 Parallel Port Drive ('old parallel, no dongle drive') 3) Modded Imation SD 120 PPD2 ('new parallel, with dongle') More info about these 3 drives is in posting #88 4) GRDuw v4.1.17 a unique and highly recommended general tool for removable media (regular floppies, LS-120 disks, Iomega zip and jaz). For Win9x only, does not work under WinXP - is the only software which can create an image file of a FAT-formatted LS-120 disk and write the image back to an LS-120 disk - to have a rough indication of the quality of regular 720KB/1.44MB floppies and LS-120 disks - is my preferred tool for formatting regular floppies and LS-120 disks 5) Imation 3.5' Dry Head Cleaning Disk (SuperDisk, 2HD, 2DD Compatible), reorder No. 6, hard to find apparently the only cleaning disk approved for LS-120 drives, maybe other cleaning disks kill the drive 6) Matsus.a SuperDisk Utility ('SuperDisk Device Driver & Utility') - contains Format Utility for SuperDisk: - to format some LS-120 disks, which other LS-120 formatting tools cannot re-format, e.g.
To format UDF formatted LS-120 disks back to FAT16 - to format LS-240 diskettes, which no other software can (requires an LS-240 drive) - contains SuperWriter32 v2.03 (to format, read und write on LS-240 drives 1.44 floppy disks formatted to 32MB) - can be downloaded from 7) WinHex v12.8-SR 10 - to create image files of LS-120 diskettes - when repairing bad LS-120 diskettes: to transfer the first sector from the image of a good LS-120 diskette onto a demagnetized and down-formatted LKS-120 diskette 8) Video cassette bulk eraser: - to repair bad LS-120 diskettes. Maybe 40% of the LS-120 diskettes around are bad. Bulk erasing LS-120 floppies After having bulk erased regular 1.44MB floppies with this Bulk Tape Eraser, and successfully reformatted the floppies, I proceeded to bulk erase a 120MB LS-120 floppy disk. Unfortunately I was not able to re-format it again I have 4 formatting tools for LS-120 disks: 1) GRDuw v4.1.17, after trying for a long time, terminated with the message 'Unrecognized Media', with a black screen in between.
BTW WinImage cannot format LS-120 disks. 2) MS Format (right-click on A: in My Computer) eventually displays the err msg: 'Windows detected a problem in the area of the disk where the system files were being copied'. 3) The Matsh.ta DOS driver, which allows to format a LS-120 disk with the DOS Format command under DOS 7.1. This DOS driver can be downloaded via webarchive/Imation from This driver version seems to be the most recent one and works Ok under DOS 7.1. It consists of Atapimgr.sys (13,545 bytes, 27-Jul-1998, is ATAPI Device Manager Version 2.04.000) and of Mkels120.sys (14,540 bytes, 5-Aug-1998, is SuperDisk Device Driver Version 2.01 for ASPI). Unfortunately, when I tried to format the bulk-erased LS-120 floppy under DOS, I got the error msg: 'Unable to write BOOT' and formatting terminated.
BTW, drivers and format utilities for LS-120 drives (USB, ATAPI and parallel) can be downloaded here: It's a little treasure. A LS-120 drive is a must for anybody who has old 1.44MB floppies which may have become unreadable with a regular floppy drive. I was able to archive many otherwise unreadable floppies with a LS-120 drive. 4) SuperWriter32 v.2.03, which installs 2 programs, SuperWriter32 (to write 32MB of data on a regular 1.44MB floppy, with an LS-240 drive) and the SuperDisk FormatUtility for Windows98/ WindowsMe v1.50. It contains the most recent version of Mkelsfmt.exe 17-Feb-2001 which I could find.
Also, this program is specifically for Win98/ME, while all other earlier versions of the SuperDisk FormatUtility seem to be for Win95. SuperWriter32 v.2.03 can be downloaded from and the referring page is Unfortunately SuperWriter32 v.2.03 could not format the bulk-erased LS-120 disk either. In the window FormatUtility for SuperDisk the drop down window Capacity was blank, nothing could be selected, and then 'Error message. Failed formatting.
This disk type is different from it you want. Please set a correct type disk' Bulk-erased LS-120 floppies apparently need a low-level formatting/initialization, before formatting with one of the above tools.
There is possibly such a low-level formatting program with the name FMTLS120.EXE contained in the installers sp9090.exe and sp9101.exe FMTLS120.EXE was mentioned in Low-level formatting of LS-120 disks may be useful, several of my disks have all on a sudden become bad, especially after my experiments with formating as UDF. Maybe existing LS-120 disks need some refreshing, the last LS-120 disks were produced in 2003, and they are getting scarcer, especially new ones.
I don't know how to extract FMTLS120.EXE from sp9101.exe and sp9090.exe The installer just stops in the middle of the installation. Edited May 25, 2011 by Multibooter. On XP, use the Universal Extractor 1.61 (or gora's unofficial 1.62) and it'll extract the exe.
Then rename DATA.Z to DATA.CAB and use the Universal Extractor again. Hi dencorso, It did work! Universal Extractor 1.61 couldn't extract the.exe, but then I renamed DATA.Z to DATA.CAB, and the Universal Extractor extracted FMTLS120.EXE fine. FMTLS120.EXE is v1.00, is in Portuguese and seems to run fine under US DOS 7.1. When it asks 'Quer continuar?
(S/N)' one has to enter 'Y'. Its screen displays the following text, translated from Portuguese: 'Low-level format utility for 120MB disks in LS-120 drives. Formatting a disk takes about 40 minutes.
Disks with sectors with errors can take much longer.' Maybe the English version of FMTLS120.EXE is contained in the.exe part which I couldn't extract. To run, I just entered under DOS 7.1: FMTLS120 J: J: is the drive letter of the LS-120 drive, A: is used to address the drive when a regular 1.44MB floppy disk is in the drive. Unfortunately, the low-level format of the bulk-erased LS-120 disk seems to have hung after about 40 minutes, the drive lights are off, but the drive continues to spin. I'll post further results in a little while. Edited June 18, 2011 by Multibooter.
Try physical-formatting multiple times. But use the US English version, from SP9090. It's more common than anyone would imagine apps getting blorked in subtle ways on localization (translation).
Yes, but the original US version of FMTLS120.EXE extracted from sp9090.exe was not able to format the bulk-erased LS-120 disk either. After 20 minutes of low-level formatting (i.e. Somewhere in the middle) the green drive access lights of the LS-120 drive turned off and the system was hung. I would speculate that FMTLS120.exe does not work properly with newer LS-120 drives. The file modification date of FMTLS120.exe is 18-Mar-1998, the copyright notice states 1996. According to Scott Mueller's 'Upgrading and Repairing PCs, 14th ed, 2003' p.678, the LS-120 drives were re-designed in the mid-1999. Only the model with the PCMCIA interface continued to use the old design.
Maybe FTMLS120.EXE of 1996 needs the old pre-1999 LS-120 models and has issues with the re-designed post-1999 models. I do have an external Imation SuperDisk LS-120 drive with the PCMCIA interface, Model No. I do have the DOS driver and instructions for it, but I haven't used/installed it under DOS yet, just under Win98. But that's another project which will have to wait. Under DOS this LS-120 PCMCIA drive most likely requires also a driver to recognize the PCMCIA port (e.g. SystemSoft Card Wizard).
I have been using the System Soft DOS drivers with my Adaptec 1460 SCSI PCMCIA card, to low-level format Iomega Jaz disks with SCSIutil.exe under DOS 6/7, low-level formatting of the Iomega Jaz disks is not possible under Win98. The PCMCIA driver for the LS-120 drive can be downloaded from but one should completely restore the system after running the driverguide.com riskware/toolbar downloader. Also, maybe FMTLS120.EXE works Ok under old DOS 6.22, or I should try to use the driver file CPQLS120.SYS, also contained in sp9090.exe BTW, Bigelow's book 'Troubleshooting, Maintaining and Repairing PCs', 4th ed. 2000, on pp.806-812 contains extensive trouble-shooting tips about the LS-120. For example on p.809, 'Symptom 21-35: You cannot read or format LS-120 media. This is also a known problem on some platforms that use the FMTLS120.EXE utility included with the Imation LS-120 SuperDisk drive. Do not use this utility.
Remove it from the system. The media formatted with the FMTLS120 utility may now be corrupt or unrecoverable.'
Here the preliminary conclusion: Bulk erasing a LS-120 disk destroys the LS-120 disk. Maybe this conclusion can be revised when it can be established that FMTLS120.EXE low-level formats Ok bulk-erased LS-120 disks with an old and slow PCMCIA drive (440 kB/s vs 1100 kB/s of the ATA drive, half the disk rotational speed, 720rpm vs 1440 rpm). Edited May 26, 2011 by Multibooter. Maybe FMTLS120.EXE works Ok under old DOS 6.22I just tried to format under DOS 6.22 the bulk-erased LS-120 disk with FMTLS120 and with the Format command, but neither worked. I had speculated about a different handling of the media descriptor byte by these 2 programs under DOS6 and Win98 Maybe the missing/de-gaussed media descriptor byte is the cause that the various formatting programs don't work, without it they don't know whether they should format a 720/1440 kB floppy or a 120MB LS-120 disk.
The file Fmtdata.ini in the install-to of SuperWriter32 indicates the following for LS-120 disks: FormatUHD Default = 1 MediaType = 49 Display = 3.5Inch,120MB,512Byte/Sector DataFile = uhddata.bin Cylinders = 963 Heads = 8 ByteSector = 512 SectorTrack = 32 BootSector = 1 Fat = 2 SectorFat = 241 Entry = 512 ByteEntry = 32 GRDuw under Win98 is in a perpetual loop trying to establish the Media Type. The MS Format command comes back with the error message: 'Unable to write BOOT'. Is there a program which can just write track 0 to the LS-120 disk, according to the above specifications, maybe with parameters? Or is there a program which can save track 0 of a good LS-120 disk, and then write track 0 from that file to the bulk-erased disk?
Edited May 26, 2011 by Multibooter. Do ANADISK or FDFORMAT work with it?No. Under MS-DOS 7.1: Anadisk does not see/display drive J:, which is the drive-letter assigned to the LS-120 drive as a 120MB drive.
Only A: is displayed/selectable, which is the drive letter of the LS-120 drive as a regular 720/1440kB floppy drive fdformat J: t963 h8 n32 d512 b49 produces the following messages: Drive 1 is physical 1: High-Density, 80 Tracks, 18/Sectors/track BIOS double-step support: AT-like Heads must be 1 or 2 fdformat has no corresponding parameter for 'SectorFat=241' Edited May 26, 2011 by Multibooter. Perhaps a physical clone of a good superfloppy will do it. Is able to do it. Hi dencorso, We seem to have similar ideas at the same time. I have just finished creating an image of a good blank LS-120 floppy with GRDuw v4.1.17 (saved as.ima,.dcf and.dim GRDuw's own format).
Unfortunately, when I tried to restore under Win98 the image onto the bulk-erased floppy I got the following messages: Error on Track 0, Head 0 = Access denied: disk error or drive is not ready This disk is not usable due to surface errors Failed Not sure whether WinHex would do any better, I did not see LS-120 in its product description Edited May 26, 2011 by Multibooter. Enter BIOS and set the LS-120 as a fixed disk. There should be such an option.The only LS-120 drive I have easily accessible is the one in the bootable left-bay of my 11-year-old Inspiron 7500 laptop, my other LS-120s are packed away in boxes. Unfortunately the Phoenix BIOS 4.0 Release 6.0 of the Inspiron does not allow to change the settings of this LS-120 drive. Actually it comes up at POST already as 'ATAPI Removable Drive LS-120 Slim3 00 UHD Floppy', and it is possible to boot from an LS-120 disk. Edited May 26, 2011 by Multibooter.
Low-cost Imation Ls-120 Superdisk For Macbook Pro
Today introduced a new USB-based SuperDisk drive for PCs and Macs called the Que! SuperDisk 240. Don't confuse the SuperDisk 240 with Apple's similarly named DVD-R 'SuperDrive.' The SuperDisk 240 is a Panasonic-built removable media drive that uses 3.5-inch cartridges that can store up to 240MB each. It's downwardly compatible with the original LS-120 SuperDisk cartridges, and can also use 1.44MB 3.5 inch floppy disks. Best of all for businesses and schools where floppies are still used or stored in great quantity, the SuperDisk 240 is capable of reformatting conventional 3.5 inch 1.44MB floppies to store up to 32MB of data - 22 times the floppy's original storage capacity.
QPS Vice President Pierre Abboud told MacCentral that SuperDisk 240 users can expect considerably better performance than what the older LS-120 - the original SuperDisk - was capable of. Abboud also said the media cost for SuperDisk cartridges will be competitive with Iomega's Zip disks. 'The drive is a bus-powered, USB-based plug and play device,' Abboud told MacCentral. 'Because it can use floppy media, it has a very low cost for data storage, as well. QPS expects the SuperDisk 240 to have a wide range of market appeal.'
Abboud explained that the SuperDisk 240's backward compatibility with floppy disks and LS-120 media makes it a popular removable storage alternative for the perpetually cash-strapped educational market, where legacy media like floppies are still heavily leveraged. Abboud also said that some digital camera makers have leveraged the LS-120 and SuperDisk 240. QPS also plans to release a SuperDisk 240 module for its Que D2 Dual Drive, a FireWire-based external storage solution that combines a hard drive with a removable media drive. QPS announced the development of the SuperDisk 240 module for the D2 back in January. Abboud said that the D2 SuperDisk 240 module would be released sometime after the USB-based Que!
Low-cost Imation Ls-120 Superdisk For Mac Mac
SuperDisk 240 ships. Performance of the FireWire-based SuperDisk may be a bit better than its USB-based counterpart. Expected to be released in May, the Que! SuperDisk 240 drive will carry a suggested retail price of US$179. The drive should be available through retailers, catalog stores, e-tailers and others. This story, 'QPS introduces new Que!
SuperDisk 240 drive' was originally published.
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