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- Path: sparky!uunet!stanford.edu!rutgers!njitgw.njit.edu!hertz.njit.edu!dic5340
- From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
- Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
- Subject: Re: Format 1.2M to 1.44M
- Message-ID: <1992Jul23.194934.18926@njitgw.njit.edu>
- Date: 23 Jul 92 19:49:34 GMT
- References: <1992Jul22.201259.7773@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
- Sender: news@njit.edu
- Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.
- Lines: 33
- Nntp-Posting-Host: hertz.njit.edu
-
- In article <1992Jul22.201259.7773@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> kls@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Kenneth L Shellberg) writes:
-
- >Very recently, there was a posting which recommended a DOS floppy
- >formatter called fdformat, which will format a 1.2M 5.25 floppy to
- >1.44M. Can anyone tell me where to find this program? It sounds like
- >it would be very useful to me.
-
- I'd recommend not using it. First of all, it probably won't work
- under OS/2. I'd be surprised if it did.
-
- Second, I had problems with it under DOS 5.0. It requires a TSR be
- installed (FDREAD.COM). This TSR enables unusual formats by
- suppressing certain error handlers within DOS. It makes some format
- programs (like Norton's Safe Format) refuse to format a disk that
- hasn't previously been formatted.
-
- The disks you produce with FDFORMAT are usually unreadable by
- computers that haven't loaded the FDREAD.COM TSR.
-
- Aside from that, if you're still interested, it does work. I've
- formatted 3.5" disks to 1.7MB (20 sectors per track and 82 tracks...)
- without too many problems.
-
- I don't know where they might be found. After consulting Archie, the
- only references to fdread were for some Unix package by the same name.
- I remember it was posted to comp.binaries.ibm.pc once, so you might
- find it at one of its archive sites. Look for a package called
- FDREAD2.ZOO.
- --
- |) David Charlap "I don't even represent myself
- /|_ dic5340@hertz.njit.edu sometimes so NJIT is right out!.
- ((|,)
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