Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!think.com!linus!linus!mwunix.mitre.org!jcmorris From: jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org (Joe Morris) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware Subject: Re: 360K in 1.2M drives Message-ID: Date: 1 Mar 91 14:07:58 GMT References: Sender: news@linus.mitre.org (News Service) Organization: The MITRE Corporation Lines: 33 Nntp-Posting-Host: mwunix.mitre.org s64421@zeus.usq.EDU.AU (house ron) writes: >I have often read that formatting and writing 360K drives in 1.2M 5.25" >drives is unreliable. I have now obtained such a drive, and tried it, >and it seems to work perfectly every time (even after trying the disks >on genuine 360K drives). Have the 1.2M drives got better lately, or >am I just lucky? Lucky. Whether or not you have a problem depends on both the drive you write the disk on, and the drive you read it on...especially the latter. If you write a 360K diskette on a 1.2 MB drive you shouldn't have any problem reading it on anybody's 1.2 MB drive. (This assumes that you formatted the 360K diskette at 360K and not at 1.2 MB, of course.) The problem will appear, if at all, when you try to read the diskette in a normal 360K drive. Case in point: I've got two machines on my desk: an ancient AT with two drives (one each 1.2 MB and 360K), and a NEC PowerMate/386 with a single dual-density drive. Because that's where the WP software is, I write my monthly reports on the NEC and put the files on disk to send up to the front office...but until she got a new PS/2 my secretary had an old XT/286 with only the old full-height DSDD drives. She could never read the diskettes written on the NEC box; I had to put them on the AT and rewrite them by copying the disks onto themselves in the DSDD drive. On the other hand, at home I've got a very-low-serial-number original PC with full-height drives which never have any problem reading 360K diskettes from dual-density drives...from any properly working drive. Like I said, lucky. Joe Morris