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From: hart@ug.cs.dal.ca (Todd Darrell Raymond Hart)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: HD floppies
Message-ID: <1990Mar7.024859.18421@ug.cs.dal.ca>
Date: 7 Mar 90 02:48:59 GMT
References: <1990Mar5.205252.28816@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <3891@nmtsun.nmt.edu>
Reply-To: hart@ug.cs.dal.ca.UUCP (Todd Darrell Raymond Hart)
Organization: Math, Stats & CS, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Lines: 25

>>Do not use HD floppies in a normal Amiga floppy drive.  The HD disks are
>>*different*---different magnetic properties.  They will work---to a point.
>>Your data isn't worth it, and the DD are cheaper anyway.
>>-tom

>Different magnetic properties???  I don't think so, most bulk HD disks are
>just tested for the maximum storage...  They also have an extra hole that
>designates them as HD disks... but as far as different magnetic properties...
>you'll have to go for maybe the higher priced stuff...
>-Dino Khoe

My understanding is the same as Dino's, one is just tested to higher standards,
there is no real difference INITIALLY.  After formatting though, a HD drive
creates magnetic patterns that are hard if not impossible to reformat in a
DD drive.  I have tried to format a 1.44M diskette from a PC in my Amiga, it
just gagged starting with the first track (something about unable to create
a proper sync mark I seem to remember).  Just taking a magnetic bulk eraser
to the disk made it perfectly usable (a friend of mine uses DDs with holes
drilled in them all the time as HDs with no problems and just bulk erases one
whenever he REALLY needs a DD to transfer software to another machine without
HD).

							-Todd Hart

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