7 Oct
2005
7 Oct
'05
7:43 p.m.
On Fri, 7 Oct 2005 18:08:23 -0700 (PDT)
Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
On Fri, 7 Oct 2005, Chuck Guzis wrote:
**odd look**
What's this Windows XP? (I'm still managing to be totally agnostic to
it)
What was the rationale in abandoning a diskette format? Does XP also
not support 5-1/4" drives??
Actually, I am still slowly getting over my long painful struggle to get
two floppy drives enabled on a Dell Optiplex system. There's support
for a second floppy in the BIOS but it appears the hardware support is
entirely missing. I had to just do away with the 3-1/2" disk to get a
5-1/4" disk installed in one of my (many, since I get them for < $5 all
kitted out with Pentium III processors) beloved (!!??!!) Optiplex boxes.
Was there THAT much savings in not including hardware support for two
floppies, DELL? Why not patch settings for the second drive out of the
BIOS so we don't pound our heads against the wall trying??
Somewhat OT: I find that commodity 1.44MB
diskettes are far more
reliable when used as DS2D media. Just cover over the "window" with
some opaque tape or one of those "write protect" tabs from a box of
5.25" diskettes (or "write enable" tabs from a box of 8" diskettes).
Sadly, although XP will read them, it will no longer format them.
Have you tried FORMAT A: /T:80/N:9 from the command line?
/F (/F:2, /F:720) is gone :-(
and Windoze Explode doesn't provide much options.
... and the "phantom" B: drive seems to be gone :-(
On at least SOME machines, I've been able to Format 720K