HD Floppies in DD Drives

From: Allison J Parent <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
Date: Sun Nov 9 21:58:03 1997

<I thought that a HD disk would simply have a denser coating of magnetic
<material applied evenly over the entire surface of the disk. I don't
<see why this should cause problems for a DD drive. However, a few
<questions come to mind. Is the magnetic coating of a different

Corcivity, the amount of field needed to chage the magnetic state. the
HD media requires different field strength and it affects the ability to
record on the other media. Simply put the head, media and rotation rate
are specific and altering the parameters of one munge the other.

<Since some of the software for my "old" (first generation PC) computers
<is on 5 1/4" disks of dubious condition, I would like to make copies
<onto new disks. Since HD disks are still readily available and cheap, I
<thought this would be an ideal way to do so.

Reading from one and writing to another is ok bt the drive used should
match the media.

<My question is: can I plug a Double Density drive into the same
<connector in my modern PC and use it for my old disks? I know I will
<have to change my BIOS setting, but is there anything else I need to
<consider?

Maybe, depends on the controller installed and the version of dos.
Acopy of upgrading and repairing PCs <QUE publications> would be helpful
to you on this and other PC related problems.

Allison
Received on Sun Nov 09 1997 - 21:58:03 GMT