HD floppies in a DD drive.
John L. Graham
Since DS/DD disks are getting practically impossible to find, what's the story
on using DS/HD disks in a DD drive (3.5 and 5.25")? I've heard some say some
HD disks can't be formatted in a DD drive, and some say they can. We seem to
have mixed luck here at work, and I haven't tried HD disks in a 5.25" drive
yet. One reason for asking is we're getting a couple of new Apple II users in
our group and we like to tell them what to ask for when they go to a computer
store to avoid the ol' "buy what we're selling this week" speech. For
example, instead of asking for 3.5" disks for an Apple II (BIG MISTAKE) ask
for 3.5" double sided double density diskettes.
Thanks!
John
William E. Krantz, Jr.
DON'T mix the two types of 3.5 inch diskettes unless the drive was
specifically designed for it. The 800K and 1.44MB diskettes have
different magnetic media, exactly akin to regular bias vs. high bias audio
cassette tapes (if you examine the diskette surfaces, you'll see that the
800K diskettes are a chocolate brown color while the 1.44MB ones are a
darker brown/black medium, just like regular and high bias audio
cassettes). I know from sad experience that you CAN format and use the
1.44MB diskettes in a conventional A2 800K drive (getting 800K capacity,
of course!), but then a few weeks later you'll find that you are getting
fatal disk errors and will have lost your data.
I believe that most 1.44MB drives are also designed to read and write the
older 800K diskettes with no problems, but perhaps a more knowledgeable
disk drive engineer will care to add a more authoritative addendum here.
Bill Krantz
wkr...@voicenet.com
==================================================================
In article <1228263325...@adbbs.antioch.edu>,
Tom Zuchowski
John_L....@adbbs.antioch.edu (John L. Graham) wrote:
>Since DS/DD disks are getting practically impossible to find, what's the story
>on using DS/HD disks in a DD drive (3.5 and 5.25")? I've heard some say some
My own experience with three 3.5 drives is that none of them will reliably
read a HD disk even when it has just been formatted in that same drive.
On the 5.25 side, I haven't tried it on the Apple, but the 5.25 drive on
my PC is highly unreliable when using the wrong disk for the selected
format.
TomZ
J. L. Walters
>In article <1228263325...@adbbs.antioch.edu>,
>John_L....@adbbs.antioch.edu wrote:
> Since DS/DD disks are getting practically impossible to find,
Keep MEI in mind. The latest catalog I have lists 3.5" DD disks
for $.30/ea when you buy 25. Order 300 @ $.26/ea. Shipping is $.60/25
however, if you order 500 @ $.25/ea., shipping is $4.
5.25" DD disks are $.19/ea for 100. Shipping is $1.20/100,
however, if you order 1,000 @ $.16/ea., shipping is $8.
Why not have the club members pool their order and order enough to
carry you for the next several years?
I've used MEI for a number of years and had very few failures.
MEI/Micro Center
800/634-3478
--
Joe Walters: bi...@mcs.com or J.L.W...@genie.com
The sound of your horn is far sweeter if blown by somebody else.
hbcs...@huey.csun.edu
>cassettes). I know from sad experience that you CAN format and use the
>1.44MB diskettes in a conventional A2 800K drive (getting 800K capacity,
>of course!), but then a few weeks later you'll find that you are getting
>fatal disk errors and will have lost your data.
I'd have to differ with you on this one. I've been using HD disks in my
Apple 3.5" 800k drive for 2 years now, and have had no fatal disk errors.
I have the rare occurence of a file being corrupted, but that could happen
on a DD disk just as easily as on a HD disk. One disk in particular, I've
been saving Appleworks and other word processor files on since 1994. It's
a HD disk, and has given me no trouble. Perhaps its the quality of media
you used. Some companies make good disks, while others make cheap disks,
passing the savings AND low quality down to the consumers. I've been using
Dysan and Maxell disks. They seem to be good quality disk manufacturers.
Randy R. Rouch
Student, California State University, Northridge
Bradley P. Von Haden
John_L....@adbbs.antioch.edu (John L. Graham) wrote:
>Since DS/DD disks are getting practically impossible to find ...
While these disks are hard to find locally, there are still many mail
order places that carry them. Here are some of my favorites:
Lyben Computer Systems (800-493-5777)
[house brand - $13.95/50qty; Maxell or Sony - 5.80/10;
3M - 5.00/10; Verbatim - 6.00/10] (s&h flat $4.00)
Diskette Connection (800-654-4058) [boxes of 10 or bulk; brands]
Diskettes Unlimited (800-364-DISK)
**** bpvh Internet: bp...@primenet.com GEnie: B.VONHADEN ****
**** Posted by an Apple IIgs using my own Proterm 3.1 File Macro ****
RUBYWAND
Tom Zuchowski <cd00...@interramp.com> writes
>>
My own experience with three 3.5 drives is that none of them will reliably
read a HD disk even when it has just been formatted in that same drive.
<<
In article <4nl3t2$5...@louie.csun.edu>, hbcs...@huey.csun.edu writes:
William E. Krantz, Jr. <wkr...@voicenet.com> writes
>>
....I know from sad experience that you CAN format and use the
HD diskettes seem to work okay in our standard 3.5" 800K IIgs drives.
However, we have never taken any special care to purchase name brand "high
quality" HD diskettes. Some of the classier HD's may well employ a higher
bias oxide formulation.
As many also-PC users will recall, it was once standard procedure to
punch a hole in the left corner of DD 3.5" diskettes and use them for
1.44MB HD's. The DD's were a lot cheaper and usually worked fine.
So; if one purchases a box of 100 cheapo formatted HD's at
Phreak-Mart, there is a decent chance that the HD's are from a batch of
DD's which were format-able as HD's. These would, naturally, work fine as
800K diskettes; whereas, some Premium Quality HD's may not be useable.
Rubywand
Greg Berigan
hbcs...@huey.csun.edu wrote:
>>cassettes). I know from sad experience that you CAN format and use the
>>1.44MB diskettes in a conventional A2 800K drive (getting 800K capacity,
>>of course!), but then a few weeks later you'll find that you are getting
>>fatal disk errors and will have lost your data.
>I'd have to differ with you on this one. I've been using HD disks in my
>Apple 3.5" 800k drive for 2 years now, and have had no fatal disk errors.
Same here, but for a longer time. I have had no fatal disk errors that
can be attributed to formatting HD disks to DD size. Indeed, I get more
errors from real DD disks as they get corruption of -- more often than
not -- block 0002 only (first block of ProDOS directory). I've since
made sure I never store any actual files in the root directory of a
disk. I only place directories there so that, if block 0002 is lost,
the subdirectories are still good. (If there is a way to patch ProDOS
so that it looks at block 0003 as the first block of the root directory
(or any other block), I'd appreciate a copy of that patch. I know DOS
3.3 could be told to use something other than track $11. I'll sacrifice
being able to boot such disks if necessary.)
One thing you should do when you format an HD disk as DD is to take one
of those write protect tabs used with 5.25" disks and place it over the
HD hole in the HD disk. Mac HD drives can read DD disks, but if you try
to put an HD disk formmatted DD in the drive, it isn't smart enough to
realize that the disk was formatted DD and will ask you to format it.
Covering up the HD hole of the disk makes the HD drive recognize it as a
DD disk.
My old high school had this exact same problem when they first started
getting Macs with HD drives. They had lots of HD disks formatted DD
_on_Macs_ that were showing up as bad on the new computers.
I don't regularly format HD disks as DD disks anymore though ever since
I've moved lots of files from disks to hard drives. I now have an
overabundance of blank HD and DD disks which I format to their designed
capacities whenever possible. (I have come across some so badly damaged
that they could only be formatted to 400K. Damaged disks I use for very
temporary storage like footnetting files between systems or as coasters
and frisbees.)
On the mention of bulk purchases, a friend bought disks from one store
that purchased their disks in bulk. He had come across some interesting
5.25" "100% certified" disks while they were getting disks from a
particular company. One disk had no disk inside the jacket. Another had
_two_ disks in one jacket (and wouldn't turn).
One looked fine, but wouldn't format. Looking at the disk, he saw that
the formatting started to take off the magnetic surface from the disk.
Touching it showed it would come off at the slightest touch. He did
this to the whole disk so that all that was left was the transparent
acetate disk the magnetic material was placed on an brought it back to
the store saying, "Now _that_ is what I call a blank disk!"
The store never ordered disks by bulk from that company again. They
also managed to sell off all their remaining defective disks from that
company to a competitor for them to sell. :-)
--
_-<#)-=# http://cse.unl.edu/~gberigan/War-of-the-Worlds.html
___/___
_-~_--<###) "`Where's Crow?' Huh. I'm not supposed to say anything, but
<~c>' __--< I did see that little moron heading towards the basement
\_--=____#) with a pickaxe in his hand." -- Tom Servo; MST3K: The Movie
Tom Zuchowski
Well, I think we've established that using HD disks in DD drives is a
"your mileage may vary" kind of thing. Apparently some drives can do this
with ease while other drives have problems. All a person can do is try
them on their own system and see how it works out.
I don't quite understand the point of your story about bulk disks
(although it was a good one!) FWIW, I've bought and used well over 500
5.25 DS/DD disks from MEI/Micro and had about 3 bad ones. However, I have
never tried their 3.5 disks.
TomZ
Nathan G. Raymond
bi...@MCS.COM (J. L. Walters) writes:
>>In article <1228263325...@adbbs.antioch.edu>,
>>John_L....@adbbs.antioch.edu wrote:
>> Since DS/DD disks are getting practically impossible to find,
>Keep MEI in mind. The latest catalog I have lists 3.5" DD disks
>for $.30/ea when you buy 25. Order 300 @ $.26/ea. Shipping is $.60/25
>however, if you order 500 @ $.25/ea., shipping is $4.
>5.25" DD disks are $.19/ea for 100. Shipping is $1.20/100,
>however, if you order 1,000 @ $.16/ea., shipping is $8.
>Why not have the club members pool their order and order enough to
>carry you for the next several years?
>I've used MEI for a number of years and had very few failures.
>MEI/Micro Center
>800/634-3478
Computer City sells Dyson 30-packs of DS/DD 5.25" disks, with 3 nice
plastic cases holding 10 disks each, all with sleeves, labels, etc. for
$3. Yes, $3. That's $0.10 a disk.
--
Nathan Raymond
xr...@cs.brandeis.edu
ray...@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~xray
Paul Pietromonaco
In article <1228263325...@adbbs.antioch.edu>, John_L....@adbbs.antioch.edu says...
>
>Since DS/DD disks are getting practically impossible to find, what's the story
>on using DS/HD disks in a DD drive (3.5 and 5.25")? I've heard some say some
>have mixed luck here at work, and I haven't tried HD disks in a 5.25" drive
>yet. One reason for asking is we're getting a couple of new Apple II users in
>our group and we like to tell them what to ask for when they go to a computer
>store to avoid the ol' "buy what we're selling this week" speech. For
>example, instead of asking for 3.5" disks for an Apple II (BIG MISTAKE) ask
>for 3.5" double sided double density diskettes.
>
>Thanks!
>
>John
>
>
For what it's worth (i.e. it's been many years since I heard this
stuff) here's what I was told: According to the floppy disk manufacturers,
there is no difference between HD and DD for 3.5" disks. Format 'em HD,
format 'em DD, should work fine. The only difference
is that the HD disks have been verified to work at higher densities.
On the other hand, HD and DD 5.25" inch disks *do* have differing media
and cannot be interchanged.
My own personal experience with PCs, Macs and Apple IIs with 3.5 and 5.25
drives have borne this out.
And, you're absolutely right of course - ask for 3.5" Double Density diskettes.
Note: If you buy them preformatted for IBMs, you'll have to re-format the disks.
If you buy them preformatted for Macs, you just have to erase them, since the GCR
tracks (800k) are already laid down in the correct order. (Of course, if you already
have GS/OS 6.X, with the Mac FSTs, then you can leave them as is, and use them
straight out of the box!)
You should get DD disks for 5.25" drives. The drives are not single density.
Depending on your frame of mind, you can notch the other side of the disk, and use the
back sides of the DD disks. Pros: The media has been tested for DS/DD disks. I've
never had any problems. Cons: The disk spins in the opposite direction, so any
junk built up at the edge now spins back across your heads.
Hope this helps!
Paul
--
*****************************************************************
"Watashi wa Nihon no Anime ga ichiban sukidesu. Anime no Tenchi
Muyo no Ryoko ni aitai desu. Watashi mo Ayeka ni aitai desu."
"Have you hugged your Ryo-ohki today?" ___/^_^\___
-pa...@netmanage.com
************************ NetManage, Inc. ************************
***** Home of Chameleon - TCP/IP Applications for Windows *****
********** Home of ECCO - The Super PIM for Windows ***********
Michael Ewen
> As many also-PC users will recall, it was once standard procedure to
>punch a hole in the left corner of DD 3.5" diskettes and use them for
>1.44MB HD's. The DD's were a lot cheaper and usually worked fine.
Does this mean that the opposite applies? All I need to is cover up
that hole and it will work as a DD disk?
--
***********************************************
** Michael Ewen **
** michae...@mindlink.bc.ca **
** Proud to be a public school Educator **
** Teacher, Discovery School, Surrey BC **
** Chairperson, New Westminster School Board **
***********************************************
Jim...@logicbbs.org
I've experimented with using high density disks (both 5.25 and 3.5) in Apple
IIgs DD drives.
The short story is: Don't do it.
I find the 5.25" HD disks fail to format about half the time, and even when
they do, data from them is not reliable.
The 3.5" HD disks usually format. But I found that data reliability was
poor after a few months.
Greg Berigan
Michae...@mindlink.bc.ca (Michael Ewen) wrote:
>> As many also-PC users will recall, it was once standard procedure to
>>punch a hole in the left corner of DD 3.5" diskettes and use them for
>>1.44MB HD's. The DD's were a lot cheaper and usually worked fine.
> Does this mean that the opposite applies? All I need to is cover up
>that hole and it will work as a DD disk?
You only have to worry about that if you intend to use the HD disk as a
DD disk in an HD drive. Actually, I recommend it, as it will help you
from accidentally reformatting the DD-formatted HD disk as HD. It's a
great use for all those unused extra write protect tabs from 5.25" disk.
(Also good for "imperfect" disks that got put together without write
protect sliders so that you can write to them.)
Nathan Mates
In article <85784-8...@mindlink.bc.ca>,
Michael Ewen <Michae...@mindlink.bc.ca> wrote:
>>As many also-PC users will recall, it was once standard procedure to
>>punch a hole in the left corner of DD 3.5" diskettes and use them for
>>1.44MB HD's. The DD's were a lot cheaper and usually worked fine.
> Does this mean that the opposite applies? All I need to is cover up
>that hole and it will work as a DD disk?
It'll work, but it's not recommended. The magnetic properties of
the disk itself are different; it may work for a bit, but the contents
will decay fairly quickly.
Nathan Mates
--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/ <*>
# And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of the
# Kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in
# parables" Mark 4:11, NRSV
Eric Dietrich
In article <85784-8...@mindlink.bc.ca>, Michae...@mindlink.bc.ca
(Michael Ewen) wrote:
> > As many also-PC users will recall, it was once standard procedure to
> >punch a hole in the left corner of DD 3.5" diskettes and use them for
> >1.44MB HD's. The DD's were a lot cheaper and usually worked fine.
>
> Does this mean that the opposite applies? All I need to is cover up
> that hole and it will work as a DD disk?
Actually, you don't even have to cover the hole. The hole is only on HD
disks so that HD drives can sense them and see that they are different
from DD. Since the DD drive knows nothing about HD disks, it dosen't
sense the hole. DD drives just assume that all disks are DD.
However, if you take thoses disks an put them in a HD drive, you'll get an
error, because the drive will try to read it as a HD disk. Thats when
you'll need to cover the hole.
As far as using HD disks as DD disks, I have to go against the grain here
and NOT reccomend that you do so. In every instance that I have done it,
the disks worked for a while and then croaked. No matter what grade of
media I used, from Sony to white-box, the disks invariably failed. In
fact, I recently bought a copy of Spectrum, and the DD disks that it was
on originally had died. The person I bought it from included working
disks, however, they were Fuji HD disks. They worked ONCE in my drives
before failing.
You can, if you look, find DD disks easily. It might be a good idea to
pick up a Computer Shopper and flip through it. Any Computer City or
CompUSA woth its salt should stock at least one brand of DD disks (my
local store sells 5.25" SINGLE sided disks!). Other sources might be
computer fairs. I bought 100 DD disks at a fair a while ago, all of them
periwinkle blue, and I am yet to have one die on me. Your results may
vary.
-Eric
RUBYWAND
>
>.... Does this mean that the opposite applies? All I need to is cover up
>that hole and it will work as a DD disk?
>
You could fill in the hole with epoxy, sand it, and spray-paint the
diskette case Apple red. (Use masking tape for the metal slide cover.)
Perhaps a diskette that 'feels'
DD will act DD.
On the other hand, the standard IIgs 3.5" drive does not care if the
upper left hole is covered or not.
Rubywand
Martin Gruen
John L. Graham (John_L....@adbbs.antioch.edu) wrote:
: Since DS/DD disks are getting practically impossible to find, what's the
: story
: on using DS/HD disks in a DD drive (3.5 and 5.25")? I've heard some say some
: HD disks can't be formatted in a DD drive, and some say they can. We seem to
: have mixed luck here at work, and I haven't tried HD disks in a 5.25" drive
: yet. One reason for asking is we're getting a couple of new Apple II users
: in
: our group and we like to tell them what to ask for when they go to a
: computer
: store to avoid the ol' "buy what we're selling this week" speech. For
: example, instead of asking for 3.5" disks for an Apple II (BIG MISTAKE) ask
: for 3.5" double sided double density diskettes.
I've made the switch to HD's (3.5") formatted to DD (not covering the slot)
about 6 months ago. I started with those wonderful free disks from
Prodigy and America OnLine and Compuserve that they send to my mailbox :)
Finding no problem with them, I started buying Sony's from walmart, and
have found some that wouldn't format, that I think may have been a bad
lot (or I'm rationallizing). On the whole though, I've never had any go
south on me yet and some of these disks (like my ProTerm disk I'm
running right now) get daily use and still are in fine condition.
I've had DD go bad on me, but so far every HD I've used that's
formatted right at the outset is still fine and all the data is there.
I base my decision to use HD's on availablitity and that these disks
need to be a higher grade media than DD's in order to keep the integrity
of twice as much data (on HD machines) than a regular DD does, therefore
being safer than a DD (which might very well be cheaper for most companies
to just leave unpunched and print DD on the same media as their HD's).
My $.02 for what it's worth.
--
_______________________________________________________________
Visit -=THE RAVEN=- http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/1727
Forever Knight / VR.5 / Apple II / Other Fine Vintages
___ ___
_____________________________________________________/ ^ \___/ ^ \__________
|\ /|
<z008...@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us> | \ / |
<gr...@freenet.fsu.edu> | \ / |
"The difference between a madman and myself is that I | v |
am not mad." - Salvador Dali :P | |
______________________________________________________ | _____ | ___________
\_/ \_/
Joe Kohn
I think that anyone using 3.5" HD disks instead of DD disks is asking for
trouble. It's not simply a question of whether or not you will lose data;
it's a question of when you'll lose the data.
If you really can't find any 3.5" DD disks locally, then go with a mail
order company that sells them. That is, if you value your data.
Joe Kohn
Publisher, Shareware Solutions II
(e-mail or finger jo...@crl.com for subscription info)
( or point your favorite web browser to )
( http://www.crl.com/~joko )
Michael Ewen
Thanks for all the advice. Since the major use I have for 3.5
disks is as backups for my hard drive I think that I'll look for some DD
disks.
Michael Mahon
Michael Ewen wrote:
>
> Thanks for all the advice. Since the major use I have for 3.5
> disks is as backups for my hard drive I think that I'll look for some DD
> disks.
>
Hey, you sure got a ton of advice, all right! On the 'net everyone
has an opinion!
As some of you pointed out, however, there is a little tiny *fact*
bouncing around here: HD disk magnetic media is *not* the same as
DD media. At least, not if the manufacturer is abiding by the standards
for making the disks... ;-(
HD media is "high coercivity" magnetic material (like, as someone
pointed out, high-bias audio tape), and is designed to be written at
a higher magnetic field level than the design center for a DD drive.
Your *particular* DD drive may write a little "harder" than the DD
standard requires; and that *particular* HD disk you're writing may
have a slightly lower coercivity coating than the design center for
HD disks. So you *may* be able to write reliably on the HD disk...
On the other hand, neither the drive designer nor the disk media
designer was planning to make that combination work reliably, so you
may *actually* be writing barely-strong-enough magnetic transitions
on the HD disk, which, given the normal slow decay as time passes,
may eventually no longer produce a reliable read signal on your DD
drive. Result: data loss followed by sleep loss or (even) hair loss!
This isn't just a little "fudge", like notching and flipping your
floppies, which works realiably if you are tidy; this is using a
flat screwdriver to operate a Phillips screw--it can work, and it
may work for you, but it wasn't the plan, and it's not guaranteed.
When you use an HD disk in a DD drive (or _vice versa_, but that's
a slightly different story), you're choosing to operate with little
or no margin. And MARGIN is the only thing that allows us to pretend
that all this analog stuff is digital! ;-)
--
-michael
===============================================================
This is my personal opinion, and does not in any way represent
the position of my employer, etc...
John L. Graham
Sounds like I've had pretty much the same experience. Mixed luck with HD disks
in a DD drive. Speaking of 5.25" disks, in 16 years I've _never_ had a bad
5.25" disk. I'd guess about 1% of my 3.5's (DS/DD) have had problems.
-John
Erick & Janet Wagner
jo...@crl.com (Joe Kohn) wrote:
>I think that anyone using 3.5" HD disks instead of DD disks is asking for
>trouble. It's not simply a question of whether or not you will lose data;
>it's a question of when you'll lose the data.
I agree with Joe. This question has come up on Genie beefore and it
was mentioned that the DD and HD hardware in the disk drives put out
different signal strengths when recording on magnetic media. Therefore
it's possible that too strong a signal or too weak a signal is used when
writing data back to the disk.
Erick
RUBYWAND
In article <4o6tdo$l...@tribune.concentric.net>, Erick & Janet Wagner
<wag...@cris.com> writes:
>
>I agree with Joe. This question has come up on Genie beefore and it
>was mentioned that the DD and HD hardware in the disk drives put out
>different signal strengths when recording on magnetic media. Therefore
>it's possible that too strong a signal or too weak a signal is used when
>writing data back to the disk.
>
>
The 'grey area' seems to be cheapo HD's that appear to work okay as
DD's. I did some magnetic deflection tests comparing a cheapo HD surface
vs. a DD surface. (As William Krantz, Jr. observed earlier, the DD does
show a slightly browner tint than the HD.) Each surface was magnetized
just prior to deflection measurement. The DD surface showed notably higher
magnetization as indicated by more than twice the deflection produced by
the HD surface.
Granted, the test does not prove that some HD's won't work fine on
Apple IIgs 800K drives. The HD surface tested was from a batch of cheapo
HD's that, with very few exceptions, have worked. So far, failures have
been no worse than with DD's.
However, it is clear that any drive optimized for the tested DD
surface cannot be optimized for the tested HD surface-- there is too much
difference in surface characteristics.
Keeping a few IIgs HD's around for periodic checking seems
reasonable. It also seems like a pretty good idea to copy the HD stuff to
DD's and stick with DD's from now on.
Rubywand