Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!uunet!pilchuck!seahcx!phred!brianr
From: brianr@phred.UUCP (Brian Reese)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: How reliable are "hole-punched" 720K disks at 1.44 MEG???
Summary: Fool the drive instead
Message-ID: <2700@phred.UUCP>
Date: 22 Aug 89 18:52:15 GMT
References: <1516@aws.cme.nbs.gov>
Reply-To: brianr@phred.UUCP (Brian Reese)
Distribution: na
Organization: <1516@aws.cme.nbs.gov>o
Lines: 19

In article <1516@aws.cme.nbs.gov> durham@cme.nbs.gov (James H. Durham) writes:
>I have read a lot recently about punching/melting a hole in your average
>720K disk, then using it as a 1.44 meg disk.  Now I have TONS of cheap bulk
>disks (DS/DD) anc converting them over would save me a LOT of money.  How
>reliable will these converted disks be... and, besides cosmetically, what
>are the differences between 1.44 and 720K disks?
>
>Thanks in advance!!

The difference is the hole!  I have a friend who was faced with the same
problem.  After a little investigation, he discovered that his drive has
a little switch that detects the presence of the hole, and reads it as a
1.44M.  By shorting out the switch on the drive, it fools the drive into
thinking any disk is a 1.44M.  This does involve removing the drive and
adding a jumper, but it sounds alot easier than drilling/melting holes in
hundreds of disks.  (To date, he has had no problems reading/writing to 
both 720K and 1.44M disks.)

-- Brian Reese     "Tickling the 8088's"