Mac OS 7.6, 7.6.1: Slow Floppy Mounting In Finder

After updating to Mac OS 7.6 on my Power Macintosh computer, I notice that it takes longer for a floppy disk to appear on the desktop after it has been inserted. Usually, an 800K or 1.44 MB Macintosh/DOS/ProDOS formatted diskette will take around 10-15 seconds to appear on the desktop. Now, sometimes my diskettes will take up to 60-90 seconds to appear on the desktop. Why does this occur and how do I correct this?
With Mac OS 7.6 a new version of the floppy driver was added to allow for DMF (1.6 MB) formatted floppies to be read on Power Macintosh DOS Compatible computers. With this new driver, there is a higher sensitivity to some floppies that have questionable data on the first few sectors of the disk. Because of this higher sensitivity, there may be delays of up to 90 seconds to mount a floppy. This does not happen on all floppy diskettes. Apple is currently investigating how this can be addressed in future versions of the Mac OS.


This article was published in the 26 May 1997 "Information Alley".
Published Date: Feb 18, 2012