I'm curious -- 5 and a quarter inch floppies? Surely not the old 8 inch floppies? Or perhaps... didn't Apple have their own format for a while, that squeezed more data onto a disk than usual? I think they played games with the access, if I remember correctly, taking advantage of the fact that tracks on the outer edge are longer than inner tracks, so you can squeeze a few more bits on those outer ones if you adjust the speed to compensate? Shudder... which older disks are you trying to read?