madd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Jim Frost) (02/16/88)
In article <9544@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> iraq!halvers@steinmetz.UUCP (peter c halverson) writes: >>Well, I just found >>out that all floppies have that hole. > >I took a look at my software >collection, and *every* *single* *disk* has a hole in it. [...] >Has anyone else noticed this, or is there something wrong with all >of my disks? Could this have anything to do with these "virus" programs >that I keep hearing about? Before this gets out of hand.... The hole in the floppy is supposed to be there. It has nothing to do with virus programs, and in general virus programs cannot put a hole in your disk (unless of course you have your optional laser installed in your PC, but I suspect many people do not). There are two forms of diskette, those with one hole in them and those with many. Diskettes with many holes are "hard sectored", meaning that each hole indicates the start of a sector. Most drives now use diskettes with only one hole, which indicates the first sector of the track. Some drives don't use the hole at all -- Apple 5.25" and Commodore 1541/1571 drives are examples of these. If you buy copy protected programs, you may notice that some of them have a hole in the read/write area. This has to do with a copy protection scheme and is also supposed to be there. If you want more information on diskettes, I recommend going to your local library and looking up a Byte magazine issue that dealt almost exclusively with diskettes. I don't remember which issue it is, but if you look through the archives you can't miss it. It should be 1985 or 1986. jim frost madd@bu-it.bu.edu
bobmon@iuvax.UUCP (Bob...Mon) (02/16/88)
iraq!halvers@steinmetz.UUCP (peter c halverson) writes: - I took a look at my software - collection, and *every* *single* *disk* has a hole in it. - [...] - Has anyone else noticed this, or is there something wrong with all - of my disks? Could this have anything to do with these "virus" programs - that I keep hearing about? Then madd@bu-it.bu.edu (Jim Frost) writes: - There are two forms of diskette, those with one hole in them and those - with many. Diskettes with many holes are "hard sectored", meaning - that each hole indicates the start of a sector. Most drives now use - diskettes with only one hole, which indicates the first sector of the - track. Some drives don't use the hole at all -- Apple 5.25" and - Commodore 1541/1571 drives are examples of these. I'm afraid you're both wrong. Most 5.25" disks have _two_ holes in them; a nice big one in the middle, which peter noticed, and a smaller, more modest one that Jim caught on to. I can personally attest that the Commodore 1541 drive ignores the absence of the little hole, from which I conclude that it would also ignore the presence of the little hole. The only time it ever ignored the BIG hole, though, the disk became unusable thereafter. This may have been the work of one of those viruses that peter fears -- in my experience disks _without_ that big hole in the center have been fairly immune to malicious disk writes. p.s. :) -- RAMontante bobmon@iuvax.indiana.cs.edu Computer Science Department If you listen to Tools... Indiana University the Slide Rules!