[comp.sys.ibm.pc] HELP 3.5" floppy

drudman@hpcc01.HP.COM (Drew Rudman) (05/07/91)

There is a driver called DRIVER.SYS that is supplied with your dos 3.3 disks.
Place it in the dos directory of your hard drive (I'll assume C:) and add the
following line to your CONFIG.SYS file...

DEVICE=C:\DOS\DRIVER.SYS /s:9/d:1/t:80

The parameters are as follows:

	/s specifies the type of drive (in this case a 720K)
	/t specifies the number of tracks (80 for such a drive)
	/d specifies the drive number (0 for A drive, 1 for B drive - change
					this to match which drive is the 720K)

Depending on your system configuration, you should now have two drive letters
that correspond to the 720K 3.5" drive.  If the drive is the B: drive, the
system will recognize the disks addressed at the B: prompt as 360K disks (ie
you will see the exact same things you have been seeing - it can read and
write previously formatted 720K's, but can only format at 360K).  There will
be a new drive assignation just after the last hard disk partition that will
act on the 720K drive as a true 720K disk.  In other words, if you have a C: anda D: drive on your system, the drive at E: will be a true 720K disk an will
format as such.  This may seem like a bizarre hack, but it is the only way for
some system/dos combos.

If you wish just to format the disk at 720K without hassling with the DRIVER.SYSstuff, try the following format command:

	FORMAT B: /n:9/t:80

This may or may not work.  Hope this helps.

[ Call...              9600bps/60meg ][ Drew Rudman                          ]
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