22 Nov
2001
22 Nov
'01
6:39 a.m.
Nope. the compatability is not symetric. You can
read with 80track(1.2m)
drives as the head width is narrower than the track for the 40 track(360k).
You cannot relaibly write as the narrow 80tr head cannot fully erase a 40tr
data track. You can fake it if you completely erase the media and use
a 80tr drive to write but reading that reliably is poor. If you then write
to
that with a 40tr drive once again it will write the
wider track.
For that reason reading/writing across the 40/80 track drive sizes should
be limited to read only save for special cases (emergency). My experience
is that (read only) is adaquate. If you have cross compatability on read
try erasing the disk completely first.
Someone used to market a utility in one of those microscopic ads in
the back of Byte magazine that did double-track writes on the 80tr
drives to yield diskettes that would read more reliably.
Anyone have expericen with that?
-dq