[Coco] Utility To Determine If A Floppy Has Never Been Used

[Kip Koon - Computer Doc]

Hello Everyone,

I have been down for the count recently due to muscle spasms in my back and
otherwise not available due to my Dad’s oldest sister and very close friend
of the family passing on last week.  I’m glad to report that with medication
my back is back to normal and I’m back home now.  I have been out of town
for the last two weekends.

I remember reading about a utility that could read ANY type of floppy no
matter what it was and put the contents of the disk into a file on the PC.
I believe this was an external PCB with USB capability.  

This device lead me to the thought -  can this device tell me if a floppy
has NEVER been used?

Also I was wondering if a utility has been written or could be written to
determine if a floppy disk – 3.5” or 5 ¼” – has NEVER been used by using a
standard floppy setup on a Windows PC without the need for the above
mentioned device.  

I’m just looking for a utility that would simply tell me whether or not
something is present on the disk.  I would not need for the program to tell
me what that something might be as there are several possible incompatible
choices.

Has anyone ever heard of such a program running on the Coco, Windows, or
Linux based PC?

I have found a box of 5 ¼” floppies that are not labeled and I consequently
do not know if they are used or blank.  I have used both 40 track and 80
track drives in the distant past as well as Cocos and Windows PCs so there
is no easy way to tell other than trying each floppy in each and every
possible floppy drive configuration I use to use.

I’m trying to find a couple blank floppies in my collection to test the DSDD
and DSHD 5 ¼” drives I have installed on my Coco 3 setup.

Thank you for any help or information you all my have.

Kip