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In article <jeric.67@berkp.uadv.uci.edu> jeric@berkp.uadv.uci.edu (Jeric Woo) writes:
>I have some high density 3.5" and 5.25" diskettes that I would like to
>use as low density diskettes.  However, whenever I attempt to format them
>(using low density drives) I get either the messages "Bad or Invalid Media"
>or the message "Track 0 Bad, Disk Unusable."
>
>Why can't I do so?  Are the any other physical differences between high 
>density diskettes and low density diskettes (I know that 3.5" HD has a hole
>at the upper left hand corner, and that maybe HD disks has higher "surface
>density").  I even ran the diskettes through a magnet before formatting
>them, but still no luck.  Thanks!
>
>Jeric
>

The LD drive heads are larger then the HD heads.  As a result the LD heads
are reading more then one track at a time on the HD disk. Track 0 isn't
bad, it's just smaller then the LD drive is capible of reading it.

You can format the HD disks in the LD drive but you must either use virgin
disks (aka. never been formatted as HD) or completely erase the treacks
from the HD disk before formatting it in the LD drive.

You may get away with using a real strong magnet, a disk erasing utility
sush as bulkeras from copyiipc version 6 will definately do the trick.
I've trashed disks before that had the "Track 0 Bad, Disk Unusable."
when I tryed formatting them. Bulkeras fixed it up for reformatting again.
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