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I formatted a single sided disk on a PC in 2024

Posted by lutello@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 31 comments

I formatted a single sided disk on a PC in 2024

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31 Comments

2raysdiver@reddit

I still have floppy drives in my Win XP system. Can you not format them in Windows 10 & 11?
View on Reddit #23362538

ifknot@reddit

Yes! I have an HP Z600 running Win10K happily and I have a 5.25 1.2MB floppy hooked up and recognised by the bios mounted in one of the 5.25 bays I can still use win10k format to format 360k floppies to run in my IBM XTs
View on Reddit #23434676

donlafferty4343@reddit

It's very difficult to connect a 5.25 drive to a Win 10 or 11 PC. 3.5 are much easier but the USB ones still don't work great. I don't know how you would do t 5.25 except by using the same USB.
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2raysdiver@reddit

Will Win 10 recognize a 3.5" floppy connected to the motherboard? Will Win 10 even install on a system with a motherboard that has a floppy controller?
View on Reddit #23393567

donlafferty4343@reddit

I don't know the answer to that but I believe Win10 needs stuff that's usually not on an older MB.
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OldMork@reddit

latest windows dont support 5 1/4" drives anymore?
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donlafferty4343@reddit

Actually, you can read and write them if you use a Kryoflux or Greaseweazle. But that's not really for using them like a floppy of old where you read and write files.
View on Reddit #23377742

michaelpaoli@reddit

I recall with superformat on Linux, doing all kinds of formats on floppies, e.g. single sided, double sided, high density and double density, various numbers of sectors, etc.
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hdufort@reddit

This year... I loaded and played games from 160kb floppies on my Tandy Color Computer 3 (100% original parts from 1987)! šŸ˜
View on Reddit #23357233

GeordieAl@reddit

This year... I loaded and played games from 880kb floppies on my Amiga 1000 ( 100% original parts form 1985)!šŸ˜
View on Reddit #23410182

hdufort@reddit

That's awesome. I've always loved the power and esthetics of the Amiga.
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Tadfafty@reddit

On a modern PC or on an old PC?
View on Reddit #23361068

lutello@reddit (OP)

386. I should check it my Pentiums have native support for 5.25" drives. My Pavilion a230n only supports 3.5". I only have high density drives. I've heard that even though HD floppy drives support double density, you should use an actual DD only drive for best results. I assume it's like audio tape recorders where making a mono recording on a stereo deck is making two thin identical tracks instead of one thick one. Should have kept one, oh well.
View on Reddit #23365467

stejoo@reddit

The HD vs DD thing is true, but it's not a black and white kind of ordeal. HD has narrower heads than DD. When you write a DD disk in a DD drive the heads "write" a certain thickness. Reading that thick track in a HD drive is not a problem. Writing something to that track again isn't a problem either, for the HD drive. But when you put that disk a DD drive it now might get confused when reading that track. Not all drives and not every time, but it can happen. Because the heads of the HD drive write (amd erase) a more precise track it is possible the DD track does not get overwritten fully. Formatting a disk in a DD drive, now it's pretty much empty, and than doing all further writing in a HD drive is typically fine. It's the swapping between DD and HD back and forth that can cause read errors.
View on Reddit #23370151

Hjalfi@reddit

You're thinking of 40 track vs 80 track disks. DD and HD disks were orthogonal to that, and varied by the magnetic media supporting higher data rates. You could get single-sided DD and double-sided DD (but, for some reason, only double-sided HD). There was also SD, meaning single density, but that's a misnomer --- SD and DD used the same clock rates but used FM and MFM respectively; MFM got more data on because it was about twice as efficient. PCs originally did support FM, but it looks like this was only ever used on 8" disks (100kB to 200kB a disk, I think). I know that the vast majority of PC FDCs never bothered to implement the FM mode. Re mixing DD and HD: the magnetic media is different. It's important for 5.25" disks as it's very different, but not so much for 3.5" disks and you can normally get away with using the wrong disk. I have graphs: https://cowlark.com/fluxengine/doc/driveresponse.html Re mixing 40 and 80 track: what you describe is a big problem. You can get around it by magnetically erasing the disk, either using a bulk eraser or a Greaseweazel/FluxEngine to erase individual tracks. Unfortunately standard FDCs can't do this...
View on Reddit #23408925

stejoo@reddit

> You're thinking of 40 track vs 80 track disks. I am. You are correct DD and HD denominators are not an exact match for that distinction. I simplified my answer because, as far as I'm aware, we were discussing purely the 5.25" form factor. And in that size DD typically refers to 40 track disks and HD to 80 track media. Which indeed differ on magnetic properties rendering HD media useless DD drives. (And funny enough QD media can be used in DD drives just fine formatted as DD. :D ) The specific situation I was responding to is the use of DD media in DD (40 track) and HD (80 track) drives interchangably. Which in my experience works reliably when writing in a DD to reading in an HD. And many times the other way around (write on DD disk with 80t HD drive, read in DD 40t drive) does work, but it can be unreliable. Depending on hardware used and probably previous data on the DD media. Does your experience match those findings?
View on Reddit #23410672

Firewire_1394@reddit

haha I only have one good working 360k disk that I don't want to overwrite.. I spent more time than I want to admit burning windows 2.01 imgs just a few days ago when I was bored. One disk at a time, bring it to my Tandy, then back to my other machine on other side of the house, burn the next disc. rinse and repeat. It was good times.
View on Reddit #23395168

JRHZ28@reddit

And I'm having the worst time installing windows 98 on a period correct machine and getting games to run on my voodoo2 cards. I just don't remember it being this difficult back then.
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auximines_minotaur@reddit

Iā€™m so grateful for that disk jacket. Otherwise we may never have have known what Memorex stood for
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postmodest@reddit

Here I am, in my fifties, learning facts I could've learned when I was 12.
View on Reddit #23390196

theGuyInIT@reddit

That's awesome. Honestly I'm surprised the disks still work. I had to read some 3.5" floppies a few months ago, but they're all failing by now.
View on Reddit #23381907

zorinlynx@reddit

5.25 disks are eternal. I have disks written in 1982 that still read perfectly today.
View on Reddit #23389690

zorinlynx@reddit

Fun fact, most "single-sided" 5.25" disks work fine recorded on both sides. Not all single-sided floppy drives recorded on the "bottom" surface of the disk, so any disk sold as single-sided still had to work on both sides.
View on Reddit #23389486

blakespot@reddit

Excelle. About 5 years ago I formatted and wrote out data to a series of disks to get [my TRS-80 Model 4](https://www.flickr.com/photos/blakespot/44380204565/in/album-72157604743399188/) up and [online](https://www.flickr.com/photos/blakespot/45242768972/in/album-72157604743399188/), using a DOS disk image writer program and [a 5.25" 360K floppy drive](https://www.flickr.com/photos/blakespot/45162258602/in/album-72157642204048303/) I purchased for my 5x86 DOS PC for that purpose.
View on Reddit #23379040

caceomorphism@reddit

Sadly I am down to my last thirty new BASF disks. BASF are my favourite brand of 1.2MB disks. Much higher survival rate than other brands in my experience. And, unlike Dysan disks, the label can easily come off without damaging the platter. Pushing 5.25" disks to 1.2MB was an all around bad idea.
View on Reddit #23376257

glencanyon@reddit

I formatted a single sided disk earlier this week. I was testing some early single sided floppy drives and wanted a test diskette to use with ImageDisk.
View on Reddit #23365622

darthuna@reddit

What did you use? Format b:/4?
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lutello@reddit (OP)

/f:180 i think
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darthuna@reddit

What version of MS-DOS are you using?
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lutello@reddit (OP)

6.22
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lutello@reddit (OP)

What would you write to it? I was going to include a text file but I want to refine my off the wall poetry first. [Small Tetris]( https://youtu.be/mftCU47Ao_c?si=raRls0Im4V1dZ0CS) (DOS exe only, 2k) [Silly Knight](https://youtu.be/ktFfN9Gz6oY?si=piK4fh6FwR45joB4) (34k zip) [Cybersphere](https://youtu.be/YSaqLJxvgmI?si=S4CqyOgukkkmPD7r) (65k zip) [Diode Milliampere-Milinda.a2m](https://youtu.be/dZDrUFAvdLA?si=Ndaa-3YdKTFUyoBM) (15k) [JosSs-The Sweetest Sin.a2m](https://youtu.be/I7PIif9scDs?si=SSaalMqaa7v9yBEA) (7k) [Necros/PM-StarChips.s3m](https://youtu.be/hRznLXhu4pg?si=ma6Prh2wfPeq8jo-) (22k) [Rgba & TBC-elevated](https://youtu.be/jB0vBmiTr6o?si=kF_bDN21azS1CQ51) 1080p HQ only, 4k) [Nocturns-Ozglow](https://youtu.be/KYxeigta5d4?si=L4XZC_v9WUmWY7VT) (8k) The DSHD disk is an mp3 of New Order's Blue Monday. Not my first choice but [I had to do it.](https://www.reddit.com/r/vinyl/comments/13p018a/new_order_blue_monday/) 24kbps 11khz mono for the full 7 minute track.
View on Reddit #23353983