8" hard sectored floppies - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

3 Jun 2004

...
 From: "Fred Cisin"
&lt;cisin(a)xenosoft.com&gt;

  >Unfortunately, the 765 does a
"reset" of the chip whenever it sees the
 >index.  It can handle NOT having an index hole (AFTER formatting),
 >but excess holes will keep it from working. 
On Thu, 3 Jun 2004, Dwight K. Elvey wrote:
  Hi Fred
  When I first got my first PC, I didn't have anything
 but hard sectored disk that I'd used on my H89. I made
 a foil disk that I put in with the disk to get around this
 problem for formatting. It had a large hole that most
 of the time only exposed one index hole. Placing it
 in the drive was tricky but with access to the top of the
 drive I made it work.
  Of course, I later bought a box of 360K disk but this
 trick did get me started.
 Dwight 
If you just use that for FORMATing, you could then disable the index for
all subsequent access, either by putting opaque tape over the hole in the
diskette jacket (won't work with some TEAC drives), or interrupting that
wire in the cable. 
Hi Fred
 I don't recall what drive it had but I just left the hole completely
open after formatting and it worked fine for read/write. I
don't believe anything cared how often there were holes, after
formatting. As I recall, reading disk controller specs, there
was an error that could happen if a sector wasn't found within
so many revolutions. I don't think my machine used this feature.
Dwight