stucki@tuatora.cis.ohio-state.edu (David J Stucki) (10/10/89)
Once a floppy disk has been initialized by one of the new superdrives for 1.4M format is there any way to have it re-formatted for 800K by the same drive? When I tried to re-format it from the SPECIAL menu, the dialog box gave no options for which format to use. thanks, Dave... -=- David J Stucki /\ ~~ /\ ~~ /\ ~~ /\ ~~ c/o Dept. Computer and 537 Harley Dr. #6 / \ / \ / \ / \ / Information Science Columbus, OH 43202 \/ \ / \ / \ / 2036 Neil Ave. stucki@cis.ohio-state.edu ~ \/ ~~ \/ ~~ \/ Columbus, OH 43210
dorourke@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (David M. O'Rourke) (10/11/89)
David J Stucki <stucki@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes: >Once a floppy disk has been initialized by one of the new superdrives >for 1.4M format is there any way to have it re-formatted for 800K >by the same drive? A real HD floppy disk is "hard coded" to format to 1.4 megs by a super-drive. That's what the extra square-hole is for on the left side of the disk. There seem to be two offical answers to your questions {offical ='s I remember reading it somewhere :-) } 1) You shouldn't format a 1.4 for 800K, doesn't seem to hold the 800K format very well. 2) The super-drive offers no alternative to the format process when it see's that extra square hole. Now what you can do is cover up that little hole with some tape, clear may/may-not work depending on the sensing mech. that looks for the hole. Once you cover the hole the drive will attempt to read it as a 400k or 800k disk, it won't recognize the format, and offer you the option to format the disk just like normal. If you format a HD floppy for 800K and want to use it in a super-drive as an 800K disk you will have to leave the tape over the hole, once the super-drive "sees" that extra hole it assumes a 1.4 meg format, and if it doesn't find the 1.4 format then it will ask you if you would like to initialize it.... :-) So to use a HD disk formated for 800K in a super-drive you HAVE to leave the tape on the disk. The easiest alternative is get some real DS/DD disk, they're cheaper and you won't have as many problems. But yes you can do it, do I recommend it? Not really. I'm presenting this for informational purposes only, it is not recommended by: me, Apple, Cal-Poly, or anyone else you might want to hit up with the service bill if the tape comes off in your drive. Hope this helps. -- \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\|///////////////////////////////////////// David M. O'Rourke____________________|_____________dorourke@polyslo.calpoly.edu | Graduating in March of 1990, with a BS in Computer Science & need a Job. | |_____________________________________________________________________________|
jb28+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jeffrey Joseph Barbose) (10/11/89)
I wouldn't recommend trying any workarounds at all to get a high-density disk formatted to anything but high density (1.4MB) These disks contain hard formats, and attempting to mess with them will probably mess up the disk for good. Jeff
dpaight@HP-UX.ucsd.edu (Dan Paight) (10/11/89)
One sure-fire way to change the formatting on a disk is to first zap it with one of those bulk tape erasers. That will wipe the previous formatting clean. (Of course, I've never even SEEN a 'superdrive,' so I don't know what they can do. Maybe one of the local gurus here can offer a more elegant solution. dp