home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!cbnewsc!cbfsb!cbnewsg.cb.att.com!rnichols
- From: rnichols@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (robert.k.nichols)
- Subject: Re: Using HD disks as DD disks
- Message-ID: <1992Dec25.005847.19177@cbfsb.cb.att.com>
- Sender: news@cbfsb.cb.att.com
- Organization: AT&T
- References: <1992Dec23.202219.114@cbnewsm.cb.att.com> <1hb8h7INN4t6@flop.ENGR.ORST.EDU> <1hd6sbINNsvq@agate.berkeley.edu>
- Distribution: usa
- Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 00:58:47 GMT
- Lines: 24
-
- In article <1hd6sbINNsvq@agate.berkeley.edu> tedcrum@garnet.berkeley.edu (Ted Crum) writes:
- >
- >Could the original poster be running afoul of one of the unformattable
- >format programs? I find these odious. To get the convenience of a dos 5.0
- >format without unformat files being written, I use Norton 4.51 safe format
- >using the "dos format" option. It readily formats hd 3-1/2's to ld. So will
- >dos 3.3 if you remember the options to use. I bet 5.0 works if you can
- >defeat the unformat provision.
-
- All it takes is a "/U" switch to block the saving of unformat data. I
- think the problem goes deeper than this (he had, after all, tried
- erasing the disks with a magnet, which would leave no old format to
- save).
-
- I've seen several theories posted and exchanged some email with the
- original poster, but I've yet to see any explanation (including my own)
- that stands up under close scrutiny. I don't have any low density
- drives to play with at the moment, but I know that I've used 5.25" HD
- disks in old 360K drives in the past. The only problem came when I
- tried to reformat them back to 1.2MB -- I had to bulk-erase them first.
-
- Bob Nichols
- AT&T Bell Laboratories
- rnichols@ihlpm.ih.att.com
-