[Coco] Read Coco floppies in my PC

[Chad H]

Many of my CoCo disks where written by my PC initially with DSKINI...afterwards totally on my 360k drives in the CoCo, rrading AND writing...never any problems.

A courius person reads what others say about things....but unless he trys to prove/disprove what they say for himself with hands on experimentation., hey can only speak frome hearsay, not experience 

Aaron Wolfe <aawolfe at gmail.com> wrote:

>http://www.oldskool.org/guides/oldonnew/hardware/1.2mb_to_360k.html
>"Everybody knows that trying to write to a 360K disk in a 1.2MB drive
>usually works fine for the 1.2 MB drive, but then renders the disk
>mostly unusable for the 360K drive. "
>
>http://www.brutman.com/PCjr/diskette_handling.html
>"A high density 5.25" drive can read a low density diskette just fine,
>even though the drive head is narrow compared to the track.  However,
>if you try to write to the diskette, you will write a new track of
>data that is much narrower than the existing data.  This will
>generally make the diskette unreadable in a double density drive.."
>
>http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/archive/index.php/t-12114.html
>"You should ALWAYS format the disk in the 360kB drive. Most of the
>time writing data in a 1.2MB drive leaves it unreadable in the 360kB
>one"
>
>http://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/drive.html#12meg
>"..ever since the first high-density 1.2Mb drives and media were
>introduced for the IBM PC. People compain they can't read 360K
>diskettes formatted or written on a 1.2M drive.."
>
>http://books.google.com/books?id=kG8LcWfruOAC&pg=PT145&lpg=PT145
>"..once that diskette has been written or formatted in the 1.2 MB
>drive, it will no longer be reliably readable in a 360 KB drive."
>
>http://www.linux-tutorial.info/modules.php?name=MContent&pageid=128
>"Problems arise if you use a disk formatted at 360K in a 1.2Mb drive."
>
>etc..
>
>
>
>
>On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 12:11 AM, Chad H <chadbh74 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Sorry..nothing against you...but I've spent most of my adult life doing things microsoft said couldn't be done.
>>
>> I think in all fairness, whether one has problems or not with this 360k issue depends on what combination of OS + Drive model they are using to work with thr 360k media..  I've used win98 almost exclusively with good TEAC and Fujitsu drives
>>
>> Aaron Wolfe <aawolfe at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Your results are atypical.
>>>
>>>The problems between 1.2mb drives and 360k drives are very well known.
>>> This used to be common knowledge, but I guess its been a good long
>>>time since anything regarding floppy disks was well known.
>>>
>>>For instance, this microsoft article details the problem:
>>>
>>>http://support.microsoft.com/kb/79538
>>>
>>>You will find further documentation in the wikipedia article on floppy disks:
>>>
>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk#5+1.E2.81.844-inch_floppy_disk
>>>
>>>The crux of the issue is that 1.2MB FDD use a narrower track than 360k
>>>disks by design.  The read head on a 1.2MB FDD can easily read the
>>>wide tracks written by a 360k drive, and it can also read the narrower
>>>tracks written by 1.2MB drives.  However, 360k drives cannot usually
>>>read the narrow tracks written by a 1.2MB drive.  This means writing
>>>to a 360k disk with a 1.2MB drive generally renders the disk
>>>unreadable by 360k drives.  This is a physical property of the write
>>>head and not something changeable via software.
>>>
>>>
>>>..
>>>
>>>On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 11:53 PM, Chad H <chadbh74 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I have 9 360k pc-xt drives, all fully tested to read/write disks formatted by 1.2 mb drives without problems....?????
>>>>
>>>> Michael Graham <mkgraham at gmx.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Just FYI, most double-density (360k) drives won't read double-density
>>>>>disks written on high-density (1.2M) drives.  I tried this when I first
>>>>>got my PCjr, and it didn't work, so I had to swap the 360k drive back
>>>>>and forth between my PCjr and my old desktop machine until I could
>>>>>source another 360k drive.  I couldn't get disks written in a 1.2M drive
>>>>>to read on my CoCo, either.  However, disks written with a 360k drive
>>>>>will read back just fine on a 1.2M drive, as long as you don't try to
>>>>>write to them.
>>>>>
>>>>>On 3/30/2012 8:20 PM, Bill wrote:
>>>>>> The drives I just got are 1.2Mb, and I have tried several times to format a
>>>>>> 360K disk, but for some reason it won't let me. I type in the command format
>>>>>> b: /f:360 (which SHOULD work), but it gives me an error message.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Has ANYONE been successful formatting a 360K disk in XP with a  1.2Mb drive?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>>>>
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