>I
>always thought that if you format a high density floppy for low density
>that it will work for a while, then the data will become corrupt due to
>the different magnetic properties of the media.
In my experience this is true. A long while back, at work we had a client
that kept sending us boxes of blank HD 3.5 disks for use on PCs. We never
needed them (sent all the data va modem), and some at my office kept
taking them and formatting them as 800k in our Macs (SE's and Pluses at
the time). None of them lasted more than a few weeks and a few dozen
read/writes. They generated read/write errors fairly quickly, and always
ended up loosing data. Some wouldn't even take a format.
I can't imagine them being much better for a 400k disk (which was really
a single sided 800k disk as far as Apple was concerned... but don't be
fooled into thinking a 400k disk is safe to format as 800k... I have many
many disks that went bad doing that as well... I can only assume that
only one side of the media was tested as good in manufacturing).
I had even worse experiences with punching a hole in a DD 3.5 disk and
formatting for 1.44 (I even have one of those hole punchers sold for just
this purpose). I think of the bunch that I tried (I think it was a pack
of 25), only something like 5 even took the format, and those 5 failed
almost on their first use... that was a total disaster of an experiment
(I bought the puncher and a pack of disks specifically to avoid the
higher HD cost... it was after this failure that I looked up info on the
disks and learned WHY this wouldn't work, then I was amazed at the fact
that a company sold a punch tool for it... but like PT Barnum says...)
-chris
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Received on Wed Jan 01 2003 - 13:56:01 GMT