Re: 5.25 in disk drive

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Greg Wildman replied:

>On 29 Apr 2001 22:49:11 GMT, Michael J. Mahon wrote:
>
>> Mark Percival writes:
>>
>>>He would
>>>have to make sure that he used DSDD 3.5 disks, the ones with the
>>>single read/write hole on top of the disk.  Standard 2HD disks may
>>>work for his purpose if he covers the extra hole with a piece of tape.
>>
>> Nope, not safely.  This has been discussed too many times here!
>
>You can do this with a IIe running the UDC controller card. I have formatted
>many high density disks without any problems

And, as I note below, it may work fine _for a while_.  If you check back
on these disks in a month, a year, or a few years, you may find, as have
many others, that the data is no longer readable without errors.

3.5" DSDD disks are still readily available via mail order for very low
cost, as a wev search will verify.  There is no reason to substitute
incorrect media and risk data loss.

Admittedly, 3.5" HD disk media is a lot closer to DD media specs
than is the case for 5.25" media, where the difference in coercivity
is so great that HD disks will not usually even format correctly.  But
the difference with 3.5" disks is great enough that HD media is well
outside the "safety zone".  This is true even for Superdrives, since
they use lower write current at lower (800K) density.

>>
>> You can try it if you want, and it may work for you--for a while.  But
>> there are no guarantees about the longevity of readable data when
>> a 3.5" HD disk is written by a DD drive.
>>
>> -michael
>>
>>  Email:  mjmahon@aol.com
>>  Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
>

-michael

 Email:  mjmahon@aol.com
 Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/