Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!utah-gr!utah-cs!cs.utexas.edu!sm.unisys.com!psivax!uunet!dalcs!lane From: lane@dalcs.UUCP (John Wright/Dr. Pat Lane) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: More ? re Formatting and writing 360K diskettes with 1.2M drive. Message-ID: <2972@dalcs.UUCP> Date: 11 Aug 88 09:53:53 GMT References: <11069@cgl.ucsf.EDU> <2977@nicmad.UUCP> <6239@chinet.chi.il.us> Reply-To: lane@dalcs.UUCP (John Wright/Dr. Pat Lane) Distribution: na Organization: Math, Stats & CS, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada Lines: 28 While we're on the subject (again), I've been wondering if, when I reformat a 360K disk using FORMAT A:/4 (actually that's a 354K disk!) in a 1.2M drive and the disk has been previously formatted and/or written on by a regular low density drive, am I not leaving part of the wider low density track on the disk and might I not have trouble reading the information written by the 1.2M drive on a low density drive? Does this not imply that once a disk has *written* on by a low density drive, it has been "soiled" and probably should not be re-formatted and used on a 1.2M drive, not at least, if the disk is to be readable by both types of drives? I assume, of course, that when I format on a low density drive, I completely erase any 1.2M information and the disk is the same as if it had never been written on. Then I was wondering if I could use one of those "Bulk Erase" programs that purport to erase all info including formatting, to erase low density disks before I re-format them on my 1.2M drive and if this would prevent any future problems using these disks between the two drive types. Would the bulk-erasing have to be done on a low density drive to erase the low density tracks or would it still work on a 1.2M drive? John Wright ///////////////// Phone: 902-424-3805 or 902-424-6527 Post: c/o Dr Pat Lane, Biology Dept, Dalhousie U, Halifax N.S., CANADA B3H-4H8 Cdn/Bitnet: lane@cs.dal.cdn Arpa: lane%dalcs.uucp@uunet.uu.net Uucp: lane@dalcs.uucp or {uunet,watmath,utai,garfield}!dalcs!lane -- John Wright ///////////////// Phone: 902-424-3805 or 902-424-6527 Post: c/o Dr Pat Lane, Biology Dept, Dalhousie U, Halifax N.S., CANADA B3H-4H8 Cdn/Bitnet: lane@cs.dal.cdn Arpa: lane%dalcs.uucp@uunet.uu.net Uucp: lane@dalcs.uucp or {uunet,watmath,utai,garfield}!dalcs!lane