jms@hcx.uucp (Michael Stanley) (06/30/89)
I have a problem that seems to be shared by a small number of friends (each of us has a different kind of computer). When we originally bought our AT clone type computer, it came equipped with a high density (1.44 Meg) disk drive in drive b:. At first, this drive could format 720K diskettes as well (yes I know not as reliably). Yet now, the drive will no longer format 720K diskettes. I *think* that it has something to do with the onboard setup memory believing that I cannot format 720K diskettes, but I can't seem to make my setup program fix this problem. If anyone has run into this problem and found a solution, I and a couple of friends would appreciate hearing about your solution. Thanx in advance. Michael Stanley jms@hcx.uucp
leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) (07/04/89)
jms@hcx.uucp (Michael Stanley) writes: > I have a problem that seems to be shared by a small number of friends >(each of us has a different kind of computer). When we originally bought >our AT clone type computer, it came equipped with a high density (1.44 Meg) >disk drive in drive b:. At first, this drive could format 720K diskettes >as well (yes I know not as reliably). Yet now, the drive will no longer >format 720K diskettes. I *think* that it has something to do with the >onboard setup memory believing that I cannot format 720K diskettes, but >I can't seem to make my setup program fix this problem. If anyone has >run into this problem and found a solution, I and a couple of friends >would appreciate hearing about your solution. Thanx in advance. If you are running DOS 3.3 or above, you need to use: FORMAT B: /N:9 /T:80 instead of FORMAT B: And they'll be just as reliable as the 1.44 disks. 3.5" drives don't have the problems with formatting low density disks in high density drives that the 5.25" drives do. (because the problems are do to the fact that 360k disks have 40 "wide" tracks and 1.2M disks have 80 "narrow" tracks. All 3.5" disks have 80 "narrow" tracks.) -- Leonard Erickson ...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard CIS: [70465,203] "I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters." -- Solomon Short
nghiem@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Alex Nghiem) (07/05/89)
[problem with getting a 1.44m drive to format 720k] Two possibilities: 1. Your diskette has the 1.44 meg notch punched out. The drive will automatically punch such a diskette 1.44m 2. Try FORMAT d: /N:09 /T:80 to force a 720k format