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From: daver@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (David Ruby)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: Which DOS should I get? (again)
Keywords: DOS
Message-ID: <1991Apr2.225454.12006@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 2 Apr 91 22:54:54 GMT
Article-I.D.: ux1.1991Apr2.225454.12006
References: <1991Mar29.164431.18022@novell.com> <1991Mar31.195238.24513@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <6798@clear19.UUCP> <29808@cs.yale.edu>
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Lines: 35


I wrote:


>>While we're on the subject of dosses (dosum, dosi?), 
>>I have ms dos 3.2, which has served me fine, but now that
>>I've upgraded from a 720k drive to a 1.4m drive on my 286, I can only format
>>1.4m disks.  format /4 gives me "bad track 0" errors.  I'm 
>>figuring that I need to upgrade to dos 3.3 at least.  Does this make
>>sense?

buddington-paul@cs.yale.edu (Paul Buddington) writes:
>According to the DOS manuals I've seen:
>   DOS 3.1 does not support any 3.5-inch drive types
>   DOS 3.2 added support for 720k but NOT 1.44m drives
>   DOS 3.3 added support for 1.44m drives

>I don't know how you managed to format 1.44m disks on your system with
>DOS 3.2, but I've seen stranger things happen (like IBM allowing you to
>format 720k disks at 1.44m with no complaints!)

That's what I thought! I'd always heard you had to have DOS 3.3 to 
get high density stuff.  Anyhow, I have a theory to why it works:
I have a '286 so I can set what kind of drive I use in the CMOS.  
I figure that the CMOS knows the size of the drive so format goes right 
ahead and formats it to it's capacity.  It would explain why I can't 
format low density disks since the drive and DOS aren't actually talking
to eachother.

I should get a copy of DOS 3.1 and try this out.  If it formats it, the
'286 is taking care of everything.  If it doesn't, I have poltergeists.

----------
David Ruby          daver@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu          University of Illinois  
"This calls for a special blend of psychology and extreme violence" vyvyan