High desity floppy disks in a Mega ST 2

[Sky7]

I had a few high density floppy disks lying around that I was going to use to make some back up's of some boot disks. I was under the assumption that I could use the high density disks as long as I covered up the HD hole in the disk. After doing so, I could not get the Mega ST2 to format any of the high density disks (with the HD hole covered).

 

Can the high density disks not be used in a Mega ST2 (with the HD hole covered up)?

 

Thx.

 

 

Regards,

Sky7

[Goochman]

I believe the answer is no - The HD disks have a thinner film on them I believe (something like that) which makes them unreliable when formatted by a 720k disk. Even if you get the drive to format and write, it could stop working the next time you try the disk.

[Sky7]

I believe the answer is no - The HD disks have a thinner film on them I believe (something like that) which makes them unreliable when formatted by a 720k disk. Even if you get the drive to format and write, it could stop working the next time you try the disk.

 

Yikes. I guess I'm going to have to find a source of double sided low density disks?

 

Regards,

Sky7

[+remowilliams]

I believe the answer is no - The HD disks have a thinner film on them I believe (something like that) which makes them unreliable when formatted by a 720k disk.

Unreliable would be the correct statement. The DS/DD and HD disks have significantly different properties in their magnetic coatings. This in turn changes the strength of the magnetic field needed to reliably flip the particles between 0/1 states.

 

To make a very long and complicated story short, HD might work but don't trust it.

[Thorsten Günther]

Yes, I fear you have to, unless you want to exchange the drive with a HD one (these will read and write HD floppy disks, but you'll need to modify the Mega STs hardware - some soldering and an extra PCB required).

 

They are still available used or as NOS though - in the U.S. e.g. from floppydisks.com or oldsoftware.com, here in Germany from vesalia.de.

 

Thorsten

[Sky7]

Yes, I fear you have to, unless you want to exchange the drive with a HD one (these will read and write HD floppy disks, but you'll need to modify the Mega STs hardware - some soldering and an extra PCB required).

 

They are still available used or as NOS though - in the U.S. e.g. from floppydisks.com or oldsoftware.com, here in Germany from vesalia.de.

 

Thorsten

 

Thanks for the info. I have a Mega ST2 so I'm not going to try and modify it. I'm going to try and source some old DSDD disks.

 

Regards,

Sky