Date   : Sun, 29 Mar 2009 14:02:27 +0200
From   : anders.carlsson@... (Anders Carlsson)
Subject: Omniflop

Alex Taylor wrote:

>> For various reasons Windows 2000/XP doesn't support
>> DD floppy *drives*
>
> They do, only Microsoft introduced the artificial limitation of
> removing the ability to format them from Explorer's format disk
> dialogue box.

I'm afraid you misread my message quoted above. The process you
describe sounds like a way to format DD floppy *disks* while I'm
quite sure Windows doesn't recognize the 360K *drives*.

If you however know a workaround, like a 3rd party driver which
recognizes various drives on the Shugart (?) bus, I'm all ears to
hear about it. I have tried a few different alternatives but all
seem to access whichever low level device Windows already has found.

The reason I didn't want to install a 1.2 MB HD mechanism in my PC
is that I've read horror stories how a DD floppy disk written in a
HD drive may be sensitive to further writing in a true DD drive,
i.e. causing the floppy disk to go bad if you mix drive types.

I suppose the best answer to it all is Linux, whether it allows low
level access to a floppy drive either in user or superuser mode.

Best regards

-- 
Anders Carlsson