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From: akm@obelix.cs.uoregon.edu (Anant Kartik Mithal)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: how do I re use vendor 3 1/2 floppy, wont format
Summary: 720 k in 1.44 mb drive?
Message-ID: <1991Jun13.211714.8750@cs.uoregon.edu>
Date: 13 Jun 91 21:17:14 GMT
References: <3510@s5.Morgan.COM> <14451@ur-cc.UUCP>
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Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Oregon
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In article <14451@ur-cc.UUCP> gwni@troi.cc.rochester.edu (G. Wayne Nichols) writes:
>In <3510@s5.Morgan.COM> joec@Morgan.COM (Joe Collins) writes:

>>I have many 3 1/2 floppies from vendors that they don't
>>expect back AND that I would like to use. BUT, I cannot 
>>format them. I just get errors.
>>Any ideas? Any tricks?
>Perhaps you're getting a message that the floppy is write-protected?
>You must cover the hole in the bottom right-hand corner.
>I use the write-protect tabs from 5 1/4" disks.

Another possibility is that you have a 1.44 mb drive, and most vendor
disks are 720 K. Many 1.44 mb drives (like the ones on three of my
machines) have to be specifically told that they have a 720 k disk in
them or else they won't format. They will *not* format a 720k disk as
1.44 mb (they are sensitive to the hole), but the DOS format command
is not cleaver enough to use this info to switch the formatting to 720
K, so I have to do this explicitly.

kartik


-- 
Anant Kartik Mithal                                     akm@cs.uoregon.edu
Network Manager, 					(503)346-4408 (msgs)
Department of Computer Science,                         (503)346-3989 (direct)
University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1202