Date   : Mon, 05 Aug 2002 21:51:18 +0100 (BST)
From   : Simon Marchese <simon_marchese@...>
Subject: Re: Trouble with Double Density 3.5in Diskettes

 --- Sprow <news@...> wrote: > In article
> <20020805155546.2079.qmail@...>,
>    Simon Marchese <simon_marchese@...>
> wrote:
> > When I type N it formats either 40 or 80
> > tracks successfully, but typing Y results in
> errors of
> > the kind that start:
> 
> > 00??01
> 
> > So, assuming, that my DDFS supports double
> density, as
> > does the 1770 controller, is this inability to
> format
> > double density diskettes in some way a limitation
> fo
> > the drives themselves or is it more likely to be
> due
> > to the media being old perhaps not in the prime of
> > life?
> 
> It's not one of those 
>  *DRIVE 0 80
> or
>  *OPT <weird number>,80
> moments is it?
> Does *H.. reveal any gems?
> Sprow.

Well the documentation I got from the BBC
Documentation Project offered *FX110 and *OPT80
commands but they didn't have any effect on any of the
disks I tried so I persevered with it being the media.
I have now gone through about fifty diskettes and
found five which will format without errors. Oh, and I
re-tried them after a full power-off sequence to see
if my * commands had been the cause of the few
successes I had - the same five worked again. And
others I tried did not.

So, I have a brute force solution to the problem. But
the question I am left with is, how dumb are these
diskette drives? Is there a "minimum" level of
diskette drive required to work with double density
formatting? Would I get the same one-in-fifty results
if I tried with a new box of diskettes??

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