Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!bionet!apple!usc!ginosko!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!psueea!parsely!bucket!leonard
From: leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re^2: Low Density Disks in High Densi
Message-ID: <1645@bucket.UUCP>
Date: 28 Aug 89 07:07:07 GMT
References: <291@bilver.UUCP> <45900267@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Organization: Rick's Home-Grown UNIX; Portland, OR.
Lines: 19

coleman@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes:

>That doesn't explain why I am able to successfully read/write 360K diskettes
>FORMATTED WITH A 360K DRIVE in my 1.2M drive! How does the 1.2M drive know not
>to use high write current when writing data to a 360K disk?

Because on a 1.2 Meg drive the system knows when you change disks. So
one of the first things it does when askded to read or write a disk
after a change is read the boot sector. That tell what format the disk
is. So it just does the write according to what kind of disk it *knows*
is in the drive.

Remember, before you can write, you have to determine where the free
space on the disk is. 
-- 
Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]
"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools.
Let's start with typewriters." -- Solomon Short