Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!uflorida!unf7!hite386!steve
From: steve@hite386.UUCP (Steve Hite)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Formatting 800k as HD ?!?
Message-ID: <34@hite386.UUCP>
Date: 24 May 90 03:45:21 GMT
References: <35018215MES@MSU> <21943@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <10957@pucc.Princeton.EDU> <9546.2652d2ce@amherst.bitnet> <7202@jarthur.Claremo
Organization: CS Grad Student @ Univ. of N. Florida
Lines: 32


   What I do to make the hole is not to drill but to use a soldering iron.  
The plastic melts and you get a perfect seal.  There will be some excess
plastic that "dries" up around the hole but just take a hobby knife and shave
it smooth.  If you don't then it can wind up getting stuck in your floppy
drive but more times then not it'll get it jammed before it *pops* into 
position.

   What I do is get about 50 of the $0.49 800K floppies from MEI Micro (or
have they gone down more since I checked 5 months ago?) and go to town with
the soldering iron.  I first format them with the Mac and if they pass use
them there.  If there are some bad sectors then I format them for use with
my DOS machine and DOS will, of course, mark the bad sectors and I still have 
a very usable disk for my 386 Clone.

   I have had problems formatting these "solderized HD" disks for DOS under
Apple File Exchange.  The disk will format fine and I'll take it over to
the 386 clone and sometimes I'll get bad sectors showing up.  When I format
that same disk under DOS, sure enough, the DOS format marks some sectors as
bad that AFE didn't detect.  Your mileage may very, though. 

   For me, anyway, it's worth the "risk" vs. price because most of the stuff 
I backup is replaceable from info-mac or a friend I got the shareware, pdware, 
etc. from in the first place.  I always keep copies of things I write of impor-
tance in about 3 different locations so it's not a major issue.  In a company
environment, though, I would use nothing but "pure" 800K and 1.4 meg floppies
just for the extra insurance (and besides, I'm doing their work and they're
paying for the expensive floppies, not me).

-------------------------------------
Steve Hite
...gatech!uflorida!unf7!hite386!steve