Re: can't reformat 720K disks as 800K

[Carl Knoblock <cknoblo@oasis.novia.net>]

Randy Shackelford <shack@deimos.frii.com> wrote:
> I got a box of ~100 720K DOS formatted DD 3.5 disks which were about to be 
> tossed at work, since DD disks are starting to get hard to find. My IIgs with
> superdrive card and drive can see the disks as 720K DOS disks ok, but reports
> an error when I try to reformat the disks as 800K ProDOS or HFS. It hoses
> the existing file system, since the disks immediately cause the initialize
> dialog to pop up on the Mac after the IIgs spits 'em out. The Mac can reformat
> the disks pretty as you please, either when they're unrecognizable or by using
> the erase disk menu option when the DOS disks show up. The IIgs happily uses
> the disks after that. What gives? Is this a bug?

Could be. I have an Apple 3.5 as well as the AE Superdrive clone, so if I
run into something like that, I just put it in the other drive, which
can't see MFM at all, and reformat it there. I have also had some HD
floppys that the HD drive couldn't do anything with, and reformatting them
in the 800k drive cured that. Of course, I then put them in the HD drive
to reformat them back to 1.44, since I don't need or want any HD disks
formatted at 800k. Oh yeah, it was an AOL disk. I can usually read those,
so it may have been WIN95 formatted. I'm afraid the MSDos FST is not very
robust. ;)

-- 
Carl G. Knoblock                     Metro Apple Computer Hobbyists
cknoblo@oasis.novia.net              Member: The Dead Computer Society
cknoblo@genie.com                    KFest 97 July 30 - August 3, 1997