dd/hd - why bother?

[3246251196]

if my amiga can read hd diskettes then why bother buying PROPER amiga formatted disk - when the hd ones all work just as well and are cheaper to get?

[odin]

?
You mean you have a HD diskdrive?

Or do you mean using HD diskettes in a DD drive? This can result in very unreliable disks. The data will be fine on the short term but over longer periods of time you have the chance the data will degrade very rapidly.

[Flashlab]

Because HD floppies tend to get unreliable when used with DD drives. Just do a search here on the forums and you'll find a lot of info on this topic.

Next question is of course; why bother with floppies anyway when you can have a HD(as in hard disk)?  ;-)

[3246251196]

oh yes - i have a hdd also. but at the minute, UNTIL i get enough resource to mess around with WHDLoad i have to use diskettes.

[Legerdemain]

I did rather recently go through all of my floppies (all ~300 of them), and some of them are over 15 years old. Of course some old OFS-formated floppies had data on them that were hurt (and how often didn't I come across 'disk is not validated', but then again, using OFS screws up the data like there is no tomorrow).

Anyhow, most of floppies were in perfectly good condition, as were the data on them. The ones that didn't work properly I formated, again and again, until they seemed fine (didn't give strange noises when read and/or stalling the application used when formating them). This is probably a big NO NO according to many people, but I've been using this method since I don't know how long, and I can't say that I've had to throw away many floppies in my life.

I would say that about 1/3 of the floppies I've decicated for use with my Amiga, up until now, have been HD floppies and they haven't been more or less realiable than the DD ones. I've heard it been said over and over again that HD floppies should be avoided if it is possible, but as far as my own experience goes it haven't mattered the slighest.

So... yes, it might be that theoretically HD floppies shouldn't be used with DD drives, I am NOT going to question that since I don't know the specifics of that very matter, but then again, personally I do not think you will have much problems with using them.

Oh, and I have to add... the two "THE FLOPPIES" (which I will call them at the moment, they don't really have a name) which I've been using to transfer data back and forth between the Amiga/PC/Mac (I wouldn't be surprised if they have been transfering closer to 1GB of data each) are still going strong (now we are talking about short term storage, yes, but with one of them being a HD floppy, and the other one a DD floppy, both being used on my DD drive in my A1200, I haven't noticed any difference between them)

[motorollin]

Legerdemain wrote:
Anyhow, most of floppies were in perfectly good condition, as were the data on them.

Nice to hear someone use the word "data" in its correct (plural) form  :-D

--
moto

[JaXanim]

It's a case of deja vu or is it deja vecu?

JaX

[Tomas]

Or do you mean using HD diskettes in a DD drive? This can result in very unreliable disks. The data will be fine on the short term but over longer periods of time you have the chance the data will degrade very rapidly.

I mostly only used HD floppies for my amiga and i have ones that were made over 10-15 years ago and most of them worked perfectly when i tested them a few months ago.

One thing i have noticed though, is that my newer floppies is VERY unreliable as i cannot even format more than 20% of them now.

Anyhow, most of floppies were in perfectly good condition, as were the data on them. The ones that didn't work properly I formated, again and again, until they seemed fine (didn't give strange noises when read and/or stalling the application used when formating them).

Why is that? I have noticed this too with problematic floppies, that it helps to retry format until it is succesfull. Once it is is succesfull, it seems to work perfect without errors. This again is something i have noticed mostly with newer floppies.

[InTheSand]

Tomas wrote:
One thing i have noticed though, is that my newer floppies is VERY unreliable as i cannot even format more than 20% of them now.

I guess as the price has come down, the quality has gone down with it. New floppies can't be very economical to make - lots of moving parts, and a relatively complex assembly compared to a CD / DVD, so I guess companies these days just do it as cheaply as possible.

Contrast that to the "old days" when a box of ten single sided double density Memorex 3.5" floppy disks used to cost around £40 :-o in the UK (from Tandy in the late 1980s) and I guess that's why the older disks last longer - better materials...

 - Ali

[PG]

Tomas wrote:
One thing i have noticed though, is that my newer floppies is VERY unreliable as i cannot even format more than 20% of them now.

I guess it could be that your new disks comes preformatted 1.44 Mb and your old disks wasnt?
You know, once written to (and that includes formatting) in a hd drive (with its higher writing current) its much harder for a dd drive to reformat the disk.
It should be possible to "re-virginize" the floppies with a good demagnetizer but i havent tested that.

Ali: i understand why you think that new disks could be of lower quality but i dont agree with you.
I think todays disk are just as good or better than they were in the -90:s.
It is just the price that are lower, and thats a good thing.. :-)

[Tomas]

I guess it could be that your new disks comes preformatted 1.44 Mb and your old disks wasnt?

I am not 100% sure, but i really belive my floppies were dos formatted even back then. But if you are right, then that might explain why some disks get better by reformating them over and over until they dont fail under format.

[3246251196]

i think i can sum up that (on a personal level here) getting cheaper and easier accessable HD floppies are the best bet.