Re: HD floppies in a DD drive.

[z008729b@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us (Martin Gruen)]

John L. Graham (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.


I've made the switch to HD's (3.5") formatted to DD (not covering the slot) 
about 6 months ago.  I started with those wonderful free disks from 
Prodigy and America OnLine and Compuserve that they send to my mailbox :)
Finding no problem with them, I started buying Sony's from walmart, and 
have found some that wouldn't format, that I think may have been a bad 
lot (or I'm rationallizing).  On the whole though, I've never had any go 
south on me yet and some of these disks (like my ProTerm disk I'm 
running right now) get daily use and still are in fine condition.
  I've had DD go bad on me, but so far every HD I've used that's 
formatted right at the outset is still fine and all the data is there.
  I base my decision to use HD's on availablitity and that these disks 
need to be a higher grade media than DD's in order to keep the integrity 
of twice as much data (on HD machines) than a regular DD does, therefore 
being safer than a DD (which might very well be cheaper for most companies 
to just leave unpunched and print DD on the same media as their HD's).
  My $.02 for what it's worth.


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