Is there any free software available that will write macintosh floppy disks on a PC? See, I have a newer PC (running XP Pro) and I need to download files and put them on floppies that can be read on a Mac Classic running System 6 (soon to be 7.5). Thanks. Also, don’t waste your time suggesting MacDrive, I already tried it and didn’t like it. (plus it is only 5 day trial).
i have found that on mac OS 9.22 that the os understands a pc formatted disk, and both machines could handle that. try using the floppies formatted for pc and you’ll know if that will work. 
That won’t quite work. See, the Classic is the only Mac I have. If I had another Mac, this would be easy. I need to put Mac files on a Mac formatted disk that resides in the floppy drive in my PC.
I heard that Gamba2 lets you do something like that. I also found some info about it on this forum: http://www.applefritter.com/node/view/2770
Can’t guarantee that this will work. If you can put files on a disk, then copy them on a newer Mac and then write to a floppy. Having worked on Macs for a long time, this was one of the biggest problems. Can you network the 2 machines and pull files from the PC to the Mac? Hope that this is helpful.
Apple discontinued the floppy drive nearly 6 years ago. The last mac to have a floppy drive is the Beige G3. There is MacOpener and Mac Drive 5, but both cost money.
There are actually some windows elmulators that emulate a 68k mac, which a classic is. . There is also one callled Here is one of them](]Beginners' Guide to Emulating a Macintosh). But the pathetic thing is your classic will probably be faster then the emulator will be. Plus it is more fun working on a mac.
I was trying to avoid having to run a full emulator. This isn’t looking like there is such a thing as I need.
While I did find and use this http://www.macgeek.org/downloads/ (Look at System 6.0.8) with much success but that is only for making one specific disk. It’s not like I can use that utility to place other downloaded files on a disk. I don’t know much about programming but if there was a way to write an exe like that that would self extract and place the proper file(s) on a disk, (Mac formatted of course) that would be totally awesome. Can anybody hack this exe apart and see how it works?
Apple’s solution to this was PC Exchange that came with system 7.5 and higher. I believe it is installed by default when you install 7.5.5 (the highest free system download).
The Macintosh Classic should already be able to read PC-formatted disks using the included PC Exchange extension (SD/720k or DD/1.44M – not sure about HD/2.88M). As long as the files you’re trying to transfer aren’t applications and don’t contain Mac “resources”, it ought to work fine.
If you are trying to transfer applications, you’ve got a bigger problem than just disk format. Anything other than a Mac-compatible filesystem will clobber the files’ resource fork unless they’re wrapped up in something like StuffIt (.sit) or MacBinary (.hex) format.
Have you tried formatting the floppy in the Mac and then dumping the files onto it from the PC?
You’ve an unfortunate catch-22. Under 6, it is not possible to read a PC formatted disk without the installation (if it can be done, even) of PC Exchange. However, no PC will ever be able to format Mac DD floppies, which most likely are the type that the images are provided in.
A PC can, however, format a Mac HD floppy, with the help of third party software.
I will disclaim that I have not tested these utilities (I don’t use my PCs very often, and they’re networked to most of my machines anyways)…
Unfortunately there are no freeware apps I’ve found, but there’s a title called “TransMac” which seems like it would do what you need, at least as far as mac-formatting a disk. http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/win/16901.
Good luck.
How in the world did you find that? I downloaded shareware version for free and tried it it is exactly what I need. It is so easy to use and works absolutely perfectly. You are the best. Thank you so much. Everyone should give Aaron positive rep forever.
blushes
I’ve been using macs for waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long 
I currently own (most in parts at this point) something like 10 of them…
And I’ve been troubleshooting macs since 5th grade, almost 10 years ago - There aren’t many things I don’t know/can’t figure out about mac history
This is a topic I wrestled with long ago. Unfortunately, I think you may be out of luck. I have a Mac Classic as well, and it only has a double density floppy drive (720k). There are some apps for windows that can read and write high density (1.4MB), like Gemulator Explorer, or my favorite, HFV Explorer, but it’s impossible for a PC floppy drive to read or write a low or double density mac floppy. The only solution I found was to acquire an “newer” older mac, like one of the LC series, with a high density floppy drive, and transfer files from the high density floppy to a low density floppy there.
To add to Aaron’s post, I believe PC Exchange was first introduced in System 7.5, and did allow Apple to read and write PC floppies. I’ve used HFV Explorer for a while to transfer files back and forth to my little LCII, then used the LCII’s floppy to transfer files to a double density disk readable by the Classic.