Re: HD floppies in a DD drive.

[wkrantz@voicenet.com (William E. Krantz, Jr.)]

DON'T mix the two types of 3.5 inch diskettes unless the drive was
specifically designed for it.  The 800K and 1.44MB diskettes have
different magnetic media, exactly akin to regular bias vs. high bias audio
cassette tapes (if you examine the diskette surfaces, you'll see that the
800K diskettes are a chocolate brown color while the 1.44MB ones are a
darker brown/black medium, just like regular and high bias audio
cassettes).  I know from sad experience that you CAN format and use the
1.44MB diskettes in a conventional A2 800K drive (getting 800K capacity,
of course!), but then a few weeks later you'll find that you are getting
fatal disk errors and will have lost your data.

I believe that most 1.44MB drives are also designed to read and write the
older 800K diskettes with no problems, but perhaps a more knowledgeable
disk drive engineer will care to add a more authoritative addendum here.

Bill Krantz
wkrantz@voicenet.com

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In article <1228263325.185652155@adbbs.antioch.edu>,
John_L._Graham@adbbs.antioch.edu wrote:

> Since DS/DD disks are getting practically impossible to find, what's the story
> on using DS/HD disks in a DD drive (3.5 and 5.25")? I've heard some say some
> HD disks can't be formatted in a DD drive, and some say they can. We seem to
> have mixed luck here at work, and I haven't tried HD disks in a 5.25" drive
> yet. One reason for asking is we're getting a couple of new Apple II users in
> our group and we like to tell them what to ask for when they go to a computer
> store to avoid the ol' "buy what we're selling this week" speech. For
> example, instead of asking for 3.5" disks for an Apple II (BIG MISTAKE) ask
> for 3.5" double sided double density diskettes.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> John