chien@wam.umd.edu (Minze V. Chien) (03/04/91)
I'd like to ask: is any one using FDFORMAT
from C. Hochstatter, et al. for formatting floppy disks ?
It's a program to format floppy disk in various capacities, e.g.
you can get 820 KB for a 5.25" DS/DD disk, 1.72MB for a 3.5" DS/DD disk,
etc. (It also allows you to format a 3.5" disk to 1.2MB, btw.) I recently
obtained from it wuarchive under /mirrors/msdos/dskutl/fdfrm16a.zip and found
it extremely useful because all my old & useless 5.25" DS/DD disks become
useful again. I know it's non-standard, but for storing some non-critical
stuffs it looks pretty appealing to me.
The question: Is there any potential problem in using non-standard
formatting utilities? Any experience with this?
Thanks in advance.
My configuration: PC 486/25 128KB cache with Seagate IDE 130MB drive,
4MB RAM, 1.2MB & 1.44MB floppy drives, running
MS DOS 3.3 and Window 3.0.
Minze V. Chien
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Minze V. Chien, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, U. of Maryland, College Park
Internet:chien@wam.umd.edu mvc@eng.umd.edu BITNET: CHIEN@UMDC SPAN: IAF::CHIEN1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (03/05/91)
.. > I'd like to ask: is any one using FDFORMAT > from C. Hochstatter, et al. for formatting floppy disks ? > .. > The question: Is there any potential problem in using non-standard > formatting utilities? Any experience with this? > I've been using FDFORMAT for quite some time now and haven't found anything wrong with it. Most 1.2M drives will read and write to 5.25" floppies (double density) formatted with FDFORMAT without any trouble at all. Some 360K floopy drives WILL need the FDREAD tsr. I always have a diskette with me with FDREAD in case I can't read any FDFORMATed diskettes. I use FDFORMAT to format 5.25" diskettes to about 425K. That's almost 30% more space! For HD floopies (1.2M) I don't bother with FDFORMAT. Tony Montes - Univ. of Kansas
ching@brahms.amd.com (Mike Ching) (03/05/91)
In article <28897.27d21e90@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> 1h1a0m@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes: >.. >> I'd like to ask: is any one using FDFORMAT >> from C. Hochstatter, et al. for formatting floppy disks ? >> >.. ... >I use FDFORMAT to format 5.25" diskettes to about 425K. That's almost >30% more space! For HD floopies (1.2M) I don't bother with FDFORMAT. > DD floppies can be formatted to 720K reliably or 800K if you like living on the edge. Only problem is that XTs with only 360K drives can't read them. Mike Ching
bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) (03/06/91)
I don't like to use the extra-tracks/extra-sectors capabilities of fdformat because I sometimes use disks in drives that can't handle the excess. Nonetheless I still like fdformat for its ability to offset sectors between tracks; I clocked small but consistent improvements in my 3.5" access times by using some sector- and track-sliding, and the 3.5" drive strikes me as slow enough to need all the help it can get. I also like the way fdformat creates boot sectors that know to go to the hard disk at reboot time if there's no O.S. on the floppy in the A: drive. That's real convenient.
brad@huey.Jpl.Nasa.GOV (Brad Hines) (03/07/91)
I have tried FDFORMAT and FDREAD with 360K floppies formatted to 820K (the docs say you should be able to do this reliably), and it worked well. -- Brad Hines Internet: brad@huey.jpl.nasa.gov Jet Propulsion Lab, Pasadena, California
jin@spdcc.COM (Jerry Natowitz) (03/07/91)
In article <11707@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> brad@huey.Jpl.Nasa.GOV writes: >I have tried FDFORMAT and FDREAD with 360K floppies formatted to 820K (the >docs say you should be able to do this reliably), and it worked well. I have played with FDFORMAT and FMTMAS and, while I could read and write 720-800 KB per floppy, I have not been able to boot those floppies. On the other hand, unless you already have a large supply of DD floppies, it is only marginally cheaper to use 800 KB floppies than HDs at 1.2 MB. At least at Service Merchandise's prices ($5 a box vs $8). -- Jerry Natowitz Guest user on: ARPA jin@ursa-major.spdcc.com UUCP {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!jin