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LS120 Superdisk Drive(s)

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First post, by blackjudas

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Hello all,

I've been hunting for an internal LS120 drive for a very long time. What I'd like to ask is for more information about these drives, or rather, specifically manufacturers and models. The Matsushita/Panasonic drive I know about, but seems to command a premium.

Were there any other drives manufactured that I can search for? I've never owned one and would like to have something like it in one of my rigs.

Reply 1 of 6, by fosterwj03

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If you're looking for an inexpensive model, I've had some luck repurposing external LS-120 USB drives as internal drives like this one:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/imation-super-disk-d … CkAAOSw7g9gALhf

They have a 3.5 LS-120 drive using a USB to IDE interface on the inside. You just have to dismantle it and remove the USB adapter. It then works just fine on an IDE cable (I have also gotten them to work with an IDE-SATA adapter). If I had a complaint, these drives don't have 3.5 faceplates. I haven't found a replacement faceplate for my drives yet, but someone could try to 3D print one.

Imation made 3 models for the Mac, SD-USB-M, M2, and M3. The M(1) is the slowest, but I find they have good compatibility. The M2 and M3 models are faster, but I've gotten only one of three that I purchased to actually work again. Very temperamental drives.

Reply 2 of 6, by Thermalwrong

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I've had good luck with the SD-USB-M2 drives. They're all pretty temperamental as the alignment on the heads is quite sensitive, sometimes that equates to not reading LS-120 disks, but they can often still read floppy disks because that's using another set of heads. They're as complex as ZIP drives and sensitive to shock movements.

You might have more luck with the laptop type, most of them were made later than the regular 3.5" size and so they generally work more reliably.
At this point I have a lifetime supply of both so here's the text search I do on ebay to find all the superdrives: (lkm,"sd+usb+m","sd+ppd")+(drive,fdd)+-(flash,hdd,hard,clarion,hdmi,cvt,belt,tape,bmw,kymco,sata)

To use the laptop type, you can get hold of this adapter to use them with desktop PCs 😀 https://electronicsluckydip.com/store/LS120_Adapter_PCB.html

As an aside, ages ago I designed up a faceplate to use the 'shucked' external drives in a desktop PC. Here are the files before I forget about them again. Here's what it looks like: Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Reply 3 of 6, by fosterwj03

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That faceplate looks great!

Reply 4 of 6, by Rapanui

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Thermalwrong, did you ever got to design a faceplate for laptop models? I have 2 or 3, none came with a bezel/faceplate.

Reply 5 of 6, by rogerx

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Correction on this forum thread, Imation SuperDisk (LS-120) drive for MAC, MODEL: SD-USB-M2, having MAC icons all over the hardware, boxes and LS-120 media disks; most certainly does utilize the PC platform USB mass storage driver!

My only suggestion, obtain a SD-USB-M2 with an included OEM manufacturer power adapter, as external power is most likely required for this USB device. Also, testing utilizing a USB-3 version port, and works! See below logs and operations performed below.
IMATION (Power Adapter)
P/N: 52-0000-5970-0 REV A
MODEL: DSA-0151F-05 A
INPUT: 100-240V~50-60Hz 0.4A
OUTPUT: +5V == 2.8A
OUTER NEGATIVE, INNER (PIN) POSITIVE
MANUF: DVE ?

LINUX PC PLATFORM
Tested read (recursive copy) operation and diffed successfully, using FAT formatted LS-120 storage media/floppy. Software eject operation works.

Using Void Linux, kernel version:

$ uname -a
Linux 1void 6.18.5_1 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon Jan 12 21:08:02 UTC 2026 x86_64 GNU/Linux

2026-01-28_19:04:08.96746 kern.info: [ 9441.389125] usb 1-4: new full-speed USB device number 14 using xhci_hcd
2026-01-28_19:04:09.09948 kern.info: [ 9441.521115] usb 1-4: New USB device found, idVendor=04e6, idProduct=0001, bcdDevice= 2.00
2026-01-28_19:04:09.09954 kern.info: [ 9441.521129] usb 1-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
2026-01-28_19:04:09.09956 kern.info: [ 9441.521134] usb 1-4: Product: E-USB Bridge for LS-120
2026-01-28_19:04:09.09958 kern.info: [ 9441.521138] usb 1-4: Manufacturer: Shuttle Technology Inc.
2026-01-28_19:04:09.09948 kern.info: [ 9441.521115] usb 1-4: New USB device found, idVendor=04e6, idProduct=0001, bcdDevice= 2.00
2026-01-28_19:04:09.09954 kern.info: [ 9441.521129] usb 1-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
2026-01-28_19:04:09.09956 kern.info: [ 9441.521134] usb 1-4: Product: E-USB Bridge for LS-120
2026-01-28_19:04:09.09958 kern.info: [ 9441.521138] usb 1-4: Manufacturer: Shuttle Technology Inc.
2026-01-28_19:04:09.09948 kern.info: [ 9441.521115] usb 1-4: New USB device found, idVendor=04e6, idProduct=0001, bcdDevice= 2.00
2026-01-28_19:04:09.09954 kern.info: [ 9441.521129] usb 1-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
2026-01-28_19:04:09.09956 kern.info: [ 9441.521134] usb 1-4: Product: E-USB Bridge for LS-120
2026-01-28_19:04:09.09958 kern.info: [ 9441.521138] usb 1-4: Manufacturer: Shuttle Technology Inc.
2026-01-28_19:04:09.14432 user.info: Jan 28 14:04:09 mtp-probe: checking bus 1, device 14: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-4"
2026-01-28_19:04:09.15279 user.info: Jan 28 14:04:09 mtp-probe: bus: 1, device: 14 was not an MTP device
2026-01-28_19:04:09.18618 kern.info: [ 9441.608761] usb-storage 1-4:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
2026-01-28_19:04:09.18620 kern.info: [ 9441.608835] scsi host8: usb-storage 1-4:1.0
2026-01-28_19:04:09.18620 kern.info: [ 9441.608883] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
2026-01-28_19:04:09.18618 kern.info: [ 9441.608761] usb-storage 1-4:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
2026-01-28_19:04:09.18620 kern.info: [ 9441.608835] scsi host8: usb-storage 1-4:1.0
2026-01-28_19:04:09.18620 kern.info: [ 9441.608883] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
2026-01-28_19:04:09.18618 kern.info: [ 9441.608761] usb-storage 1-4:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
2026-01-28_19:04:09.18620 kern.info: [ 9441.608835] scsi host8: usb-storage 1-4:1.0
2026-01-28_19:04:09.18620 kern.info: [ 9441.608883] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
2026-01-28_19:04:09.18727 user.info: Jan 28 14:04:09 mtp-probe: checking bus 1, device 14: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-4"
2026-01-28_19:04:09.19527 user.info: Jan 28 14:04:09 mtp-probe: bus: 1, device: 14 was not an MTP device
2026-01-28_19:04:10.25230 kern.notice: [ 9442.674593] scsi 8:0:0:0: Direct-Access MATSHITA LS-120 VER5 00 F523 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
2026-01-28_19:04:10.25344 kern.notice: [ 9442.675144] sd 8:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg5 type 0
2026-01-28_19:04:10.25729 kern.warn: [ 9442.679610] sd 8:0:0:0: Power-on or device reset occurred
2026-01-28_19:04:10.26234 kern.notice: [ 9442.684441] sd 8:0:0:0: [sde] Media removed, stopped polling
2026-01-28_19:04:10.28126 kern.notice: [ 9442.703153] sd 8:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk

MICROSOFT WINDOWS 10 (VirtualBox Session 7.2.4)
Tested read (copy operation) successfully using FAT formatted LS-120 storage media/floppy. Software eject operation works.

Floppy Disk Drives:
Device USBSTOR\SFloppy&Ven_MATSHATA&Prod_LS-120_VER5___00&Rev_F523\6&2896bfb7&0 was configured.
Driver Name: flpydisk.inf
Class Guid: {4d36e980-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}
Driver Date: 06/21/2006
Driver Version: 10.0.19041.1
Driver Provider: Microsoft
Driver Section: sfloppy_install.NT
Driver Rank: 0xFF0005
Matching Device Id: USBSTOR\GenSFloppy
Outranked Drivers: flpydisk.inf:GenSFloppy:00FF0006 flpydisk.inf:GenSFloppy:00FF2002
Device Updated: false
Parent Device: USB\VID_04E6&PID_0001\5&12c8f4c0&0&2

Reply 6 of 6, by MattRocks

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I had LS120s, but CDRW killed LS120 before mass uptake.

IIRC it was easy to break the 120Mb disks by applying a wrong format, and most motherboards didn't know how to boot from them.

Brands I recall were Mitsumi, Mitsubishi, and even Sony. Intel backed the standard. Imation owned the standard. I think mine were Imation/Mitsubishi.