10 Jun
2003
10 Jun
'03
12:13 p.m.
> I I need
a couple 3 1/2" diskette for an old 8086 six laptop too boot
On Mon, 9 Jun
2003, Stuart Johnson wrote:
Have you tried using a HD floppy and putting tape
over BOTH sides of the
hole that marks the disk as HD? I should think that you could then format
the floppy as a 720 easily. I haven't tried this myself, but "Logic is the
art of going wrong - with confidence". I write enable factory-made read-only
1.44 floppies in this manner, and I use ordinary frosted "scotch" tape with
great success.
1) Many drives use a light and photocell to sense that hole. At least use
an opaque tape!
2) Many 720K drives have no sensor for the "media ID" hole, so tape, etc
might turn out to be unnecessary unless/until you try to transfer files by
putting that diskette into your 1.4M drive. However, there were some
drives (THANKS, Tony!) that use that same location for the "is there a
disk in the drive" sensor.
Yes. The old Sony drives (used in the HP9121, to tie in another thread)
have the disk-inserted sensor (which is a flag + slotted optoswitch in
this unit) in exactly the same position as the HD hole. These drives will
not recognise that an unmodified HD disk has been inserted.
-tony