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From: draper@buster.cps.msu.edu (Patrick J Draper)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: making 720K floppy 1.44M
Message-ID: <1991May8.043645.26510@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
Date: 8 May 91 04:36:45 GMT
References: <1991May7.061300.13670@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu>
Sender: news@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu
Reply-To: draper@buster.cps.msu.edu (Patrick J Draper)
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Michigan State University
Lines: 34
Originator: draper@buster.cps.msu.edu

In article <1991May7.061300.13670@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu> devolder@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Eric DeVolder) writes:
>Okay, all you IBM PC techno gurus, here is a question for you.  What I have
>in mind is this:  Is it possible to create your own device driver, for DOS
>or some other OS, that does not use the BIOS but rather communicates directly
>with the drive controller and make the drive believe that it is a 1.44M disk?
>
>I have noticed, as I am sure hundreds of other people have, that alot of the
>problems of trying to add a higher density drive to a PC is that the BIOS
>does not support it.  So, why not bypass BIOS and create your own subroutine(s)
>to handle the disk drive.  Outside of the check for the 1.44M hole on the
>actual disk, I don't really see any problems in doing this.
>
>If this is possible or it has already been done, I would welcome any pointers
>as to where to this driver or source to a driver would reside.
>
>Thanks,
>Eric DeVolder

This can and has been done. Many drive manufacturers include these
drivers with the hardware. 

I wouldn't worry about checking the 1.44M hole. IBM doesn't, and I
disabled the hole checking on my drive with a soldiering iron. It lets
you format a 720K disk at 1.44 M.

But I don't want to start that discussion here again. :-)


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Patrick Draper     "College is supposed to prepare you for the future,
cps.msu.edu               but all my future's behind me." 
draper@cps.msu.edu      -- My GrandPa, age 85, Fall 1990 graduate
                           of Western Michigan University 
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