[Coco] Read Coco floppies in my PC

[Chad H]

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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