On 08/09/2017 09:52 AM, Richard Cini via cctalk wrote: > It's funny -- I didn't see the original reply from Bill to this > message. > > I am aware of the track differences and I thought Dos would format > it but just slam the head for the last three tracks. No such luck. It > actually complains about the disk from the beginning. > > The Qume 242 is a DSDD drive in case that was asked in the original > thread, and should work in this situation.
I'll try again--it doesn't matter if the Qume 242 (I've got one) is a DSDD drive if you're using SS media. Peek inside the drive and you'll see that there are *two* index sensors--one for single-sided and the other for double-sided media. Unless you've got a hole punch handy, you can't format single-sided media to use both sides. Okay, a DOS format is more than a simple IMD-type format, which does little more than instruct the FDC to write a bunch of E5-filled sectors and headers. A DOS format also writes a boot sector, FAT and root directory. If most late versions of DOS don't see a valid boot sector, you'll get a "General Failure" error. If you use IMD to format the disk, use the "Analyze" option to verify what you've got. I hope I've been clear--lately, I tend to assume too much. --Chuck
