🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec23.202219.114@cbnewsm.cb.att.com> evans1@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (Dan Evans) writes:
>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!
>>

Yes there are physical differences in the media.  The differences are more
apparent on 5.25" diskettes then on 3.5".

>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.

I don't believe that is correct.  If you look at a floppy disk they aren't
composed of tracks of magnetic media.  The media is a continuous (sp?)
coating on the disk.

>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.

Usually with 5.25" disks you will end up with problems.  3.5 disks you might
be able to get away with it.

Later,
-- 
John Villalovos
Certified Netware Engineer
villalj@xanth.cs.orst.edu
(503) 753-7883