Re: Initializing 3.5" 800K floppies: AEHD+ vs Superdrive

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Pete PPP <pp142w@webtv.net> wrote:

> >When initializing a stack of 50 floppies, about half
> >the disks error out in the Superdrive. However the
> >same 50 floppies work perfectly when init'd by the
> >AEHD+.
> 
> By any chance are the ones that are failing in the Superdrive formatted
> for IBM DOS? I seem to recall a problem where the disk would fail to
> Initialize on the first attempt. Ejecting and immediately reinserting
> for a second attempt would solve the problem.
> 
> What was it now? Same disk, but when formatted it was 720k for IBM and
> 800K on the Apple? Going on long term memory here so things are a bit
> blurry.

That sounds right: after reading a 720K MFM disk, the Superdrive
firmware would get stuck in a funny state whereby a subsequent attempt
to format a 3.5" disk in 800K format would fail, but it was OK after
reading a 1.44 MB disk or another 800K disk (or probably on a second
attempt to format 800K).

This never bothered me because I also had a standard Apple 3.5 Drive on
the computer.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz