[Coco] 3.5" floppy disks

[Jim Hickle]

James Hrubik <jimhrubik at earthlink.net> wrote: 
On Dec 7, 2006, at 12:46 PM, Roger Merchberger wrote:

> Rumor has it that Joel Ewy may have mentioned these words:
>
>>   I suppose one could also use 1.44M floppy disks as well
>
> You'd be supposing wrong. Using 1.44Meg media will change the  
> datarate that
> the floppy drive expects (from 250Kbit to 500Kbit) and stock CoCo
> controllers cannot supply that speed.
>
> Taping over the hole on 1.44Meg media is also a no-no. The  
> coercivity of
> the media is different, and your data will (dollars to donuts) not  
> last
> very long.
>>

Guess I lucked out.  I just fired up the CoCo (first time in half a  
year) just to check out my OS-9 Boot disk  - a 1.44 formatted as a  
720 way back, oh, maybe 10 years ago.  Hole taped over with black  
electricians' tape.  Worked fine.  Booted right into Multi-Vue

I wonder if the HD disks formatted as DD that people have had fail have failed because they are just lousy disks.

I've found plenty of 1.44 disks, formatted as 1.44 disks, that have failed and can't be successfully formatted.  Disk not stuck in envelope, that sliding metal cover not stuck either but disk not usable.  

 
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