VOGONS


First post, by Planet-Dune

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Hello

I am running into floppy drive issues... I have 3 systems with the following configurations:

SysA:
1.44MB 3.5" drive, 1.2MB 5.25" drive

SysB:
720 3.5" drive, 360KB 5.25" drive

SysC:
2x 360KB 5.25" drives

Now I acquired a box of a few hundred floppy disks. I believe they are all DD 360b floppies. Beyond the expected some work, some don't, some half I am running into another issue. It seems if I use the 1.2MB drive in SysA to put data on the floppies I get very bad results once reading that data in the 360kb drives. Errors left and right, somefiles copy fine, then 5 don't, then a few do, then some don't etc.... I thought having the 1.44mb/1.2mb combo would allow me to get data on my 360 system the fastest (the SysC) as I could just put the data from my pc downstairs on a 1.44 diskette and then put that in SysA and copy it to the 360kb floppies... instead of having to use a 1.44mb diskette to copy the data to a 720kb diskette to copy the data to a 360kb floppy.

A few questions (to make this question more clear):

- Can I freely use a 1.2MB floppy to write data to 360KB floppies to be used on a 360KB drive?
- Can I format a 360KB floppy in a 1.2MB drive? I tried and it weirdly enough said it was "formatting 1.2mb" and then said there were 200kb of bad sectors and 900kb usable (on a 360kb floppy as far as I can tell) but the floppy really didn't work well anymore at that point, especially in the 360kb drive.

Bonus question:

- Is there a good DOS based utility that works with 360kb floppys that checks them and marks all bad sectors to not use them etc? So I can format all my floppies..

I think I wasted about 15 or so 360kb floppies testing out different scenarios and figuring out what is happening but the results are so erratic (sometimes the floppy is just dead, other times it works half etc)... I figured Id ask you guys 😀

EDIT: added a screenshot of the format I did, as you can see it said something about a "different file format" and that I wouldn't be able to "unformat" but then proceeded to format it labeling it a 1.2MB floppy.

Reply 1 of 12, by derSammler

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Planet-Dune wrote on 2020-03-26, 21:11:

- Can I freely use a 1.2MB floppy to write data to 360KB floppies to be used on a 360KB drive?

No. You can write data to a 360KB disk and keep using that with the 1.2MB drive. A 360KB drive however won't be able to reliably read the disk. That is by design, as the head of a 1.2MB drive is much smaller, leaving junk of data left and right of the track that a 360KB drive will pick up, causing it not to understand what it reads.

Planet-Dune wrote on 2020-03-26, 21:11:

- Can I format a 360KB floppy in a 1.2MB drive? I tried and it weirdly enough said it was "formatting 1.2mb" and then said there were 200kb of bad sectors and 900kb usable (on a 360kb floppy as far as I can tell) but the floppy really didn't work well anymore at that point, especially in the 360kb drive.

You need to tell format that it's a 360KB disk. You can not format it to 1.2MB, for obvious reasons.

Reply 2 of 12, by Planet-Dune

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derSammler wrote on 2020-03-26, 21:31:
No. You can write data to a 360KB disk and keep using that with the 1.2MB drive. A 360KB drive however won't be able to reliably […]
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Planet-Dune wrote on 2020-03-26, 21:11:

- Can I freely use a 1.2MB floppy to write data to 360KB floppies to be used on a 360KB drive?

No. You can write data to a 360KB disk and keep using that with the 1.2MB drive. A 360KB drive however won't be able to reliably read the disk. That is by design, as the head of a 1.2MB drive is much smaller, leaving junk of data left and right of the track that a 360KB drive will pick up, causing it not to understand what it reads.

Planet-Dune wrote on 2020-03-26, 21:11:

- Can I format a 360KB floppy in a 1.2MB drive? I tried and it weirdly enough said it was "formatting 1.2mb" and then said there were 200kb of bad sectors and 900kb usable (on a 360kb floppy as far as I can tell) but the floppy really didn't work well anymore at that point, especially in the 360kb drive.

You need to tell format that it's a 360KB disk. You can not format it to 1.2MB, for obvious reasons.

Okay, that explains all my frustration... I figured it would work like a 720kb diskette where it can be used in a 1.44mb drive just fine without issues (and then still be readable on a 720 one)...

Well would still be nice to know if there are any good check and format utilities out there or should I just use default format.com ?

Reply 3 of 12, by derSammler

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FORMAT.COM should be fine. It has various options to check for bad tracks and such; just use the "/?" parameter to get all options listed.

Reply 4 of 12, by pentiumspeed

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1.2MB and 360K are completely different only in writing heads width track. 360K is wider than 1.2MB also is narrower.

Can read 360K on 1.2MB and can write a blank 360k disk on 1.2MB pretty good but comes up a problem when 360K drive formatted on 360K disk then write on 1.2MB in 360K mode then you have more problems on reading messy 36oK disk in 360K drive due to mixed width on each tracks.

Better find a real 360K drive.

And another issue is 1.2MB write amplification is stronger than 360K meant 1.2MB disk formatted as 360K in 1.2MB drive have hard time writing data hard enough impressions on 36oK drive.

Cheers,

Great Northern aka Canada.

Reply 5 of 12, by Myloch

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A 3.5" disk I won in an auction is 360k. Wait a moment, isn't this capacity supposed to be for 5.25" disks? 😮

"Gamer & collector for passion, I firmly believe in the preservation and the diffusion of old/rare software, against all personal egoisms"

Reply 6 of 12, by Grzyb

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Myloch wrote on 2023-02-14, 14:44:

A 3.5" disk I won in an auction is 360k. Wait a moment, isn't this capacity supposed to be for 5.25" disks? 😮

3.5" Single Sided, Double Density is 360 KB.
Sometimes used with computers other than PC.

Nie tylko, jak widzicie, w tym trudność, że nie zdołacie wejść na moją górę, lecz i w tym, że ja do was cały zejść nie mogę, gdyż schodząc, gubię po drodze to, co miałem donieść.

Reply 7 of 12, by Jo22

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Grzyb wrote on 2023-02-14, 15:04:
Myloch wrote on 2023-02-14, 14:44:

A 3.5" disk I won in an auction is 360k. Wait a moment, isn't this capacity supposed to be for 5.25" disks? 😮

3.5" Single Sided, Double Density is 360 KB.
Sometimes used with computers other than PC.

360KB also is the "forgotten" format that 3,5"1,44 MB drives can read/write. Including the modern USB floppy drives.

Back in time, 360KB format was used with 3,5" floppy drives on legacy hardware that didn't support anything higher than 360KB SD.
The 3,5" drive was used as a drop-in replacement, so to say.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 8 of 12, by Myloch

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It's a disk with shareware from germany, for PC. Since the floppy had a bad shape (mould and dirt) I thought it was unreadable for that reason, and it stayed on my desk for months. But apparently it was just that Windows 7 didn't recognize that and wanted me to reformat. I casually discovered all the data was intact when I tried to read it with a japanese imaging tool for floppies. I'm prone to think all windows versions (except maybe 95-98-me) cannot recognize 360k formatted 3.5" disks.

"Gamer & collector for passion, I firmly believe in the preservation and the diffusion of old/rare software, against all personal egoisms"

Reply 9 of 12, by Grzyb

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It's never been a standard format on the PC.
But of course, a Double Sided drive can read Single Sided media.

Another possibility for a 360 KB 3.5" diskette is Double Sided, Double Density, but with only 40 tracks written.
Once upon a time, I encountered such a disk, bundled with some hardware - two diskettes were provided, 5.25" and 3.5", both 360 KB, with exactly the same contents - obviously both created off the same disk image.

Nie tylko, jak widzicie, w tym trudność, że nie zdołacie wejść na moją górę, lecz i w tym, że ja do was cały zejść nie mogę, gdyż schodząc, gubię po drodze to, co miałem donieść.

Reply 10 of 12, by Jo22

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Myloch wrote on 2023-02-14, 15:36:

I casually discovered all the data was intact when I tried to read it with a japanese imaging tool for floppies.
I'm prone to think all windows versions (except maybe 95-98-me) cannot recognize 360k formatted 3.5" disks.

That's one of the many reasons I have a copy of WinImage 3 and Windows 3.1 on my vintage computers. 😁
Windows 3.1x doesn't do the IHC damage, also: https://www.os2museum.com/wp/the-ihc-damage/

Btw, didn't use the MSX computers such low-end floppy formats, too ?
If so, their community may have some expertise in this field.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 11 of 12, by wbahnassi

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Yes the MSX can have single-sided or double-sided 3.5" drives (depending on the machine). Those use the same format of MS-DOS (because MSX-DOS was derived from it).

Reply 12 of 12, by Spiffles

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Nice to know that 1,2MB drives can read all the lower capacities as well. Writing wouldn't be that important for me, since I imagine if I ever got my hands on any 360k floppies, they'd come filled with data already - so passive reading is good enough. Clean, new 1,2 MB floppies could be used for writing stuff to instead.

I just got a system to work that has core 2 duo and windows 10 but supports dual floppy including 5,25'' with no modifications, that's a pretty rare and specialized motherboard that I was able to find, pretty stoked about this 😁