Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: amiga-mad on November 12, 2007, 02:56:57 PM
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HI guys.
I have a bit of a silly question.
Can i use new PC floppy disks to save my work on my Amiga 600?
Many thanks
:-D
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Welcome amiga-mad
Yes I believe you can by covering one of the holes in the PC floppy disk then clicking on the unreadable icon and formatting it.
Actually, I'm gonna go and have a play at doing this myself to be sure :-)
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Well, basically yes, you will need to block up the High Density hole on the upper right, but HD disks used as DD this way are said to not be as reliable as actual double density disks....
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Thanks for that. Your help is very much appeciated.
:-D
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Can double density disks still be bought new?
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You can but not reliably- better to get new DSDD disks:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=dsdd
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Yes you can. And it will be formatted in the Amiga 880K DD format. No matter what disk you use (DD, HD or ED)...
The standard disk drive of A600 is DD 880K.
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Thats fantastic.
Thanks for all of your help. Im off to get some new DD disks.
Thanks again
:-D
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yes but
1- you have to format them as 720k at windows
2- use the PC0: devide at storage/dosdrivers
3- be careful about dos naming limitations (8.3) as it will be a fat14 formatted disk.
you can also use these floppies to transfer data between amiga-pc.
edit : doh too late and yeah why didn't I think about formatting 880k in the first place ? anyway but rumor is that they won't be long lasting this way, so don't expect them to be a reliable storage device.
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Just for the record:
my taped-up "PC floppy diskettes" (basically High Density 2MB unformatted capacity diskettes), have been working great for over 10-12 years (don't remember exact date I did a final write on them). Many of them include games, which are obviously used every time the game is played. Suffice to say: plenty!
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I think HD diskettes need stronger magnetic field or something like that.
Don't store valuable data for long on them.
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orange wrote:
I think HD diskettes need stronger magnetic field or something like that.
HD and DD disks have different magnetic coercivities, but don't ask me why.
JaX
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In a related topic, can I get a card reader to wrk on an Amiga?
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To actually use a card reader you would need to add USB ports. This requires either a big box Amiga with a PCI expansion and a PCI USB controller, or a clockport USB card like the Subway.
A better solution if you have an Amiga with a PCMCIA slot (A1200 or A600) would be to use a PCMCIA compact flash reader with an adapter for whatever type of card you want to use (e.g. SD -> CF if you want to use an SD card)
--
moto
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or as I have done, in an A2000 install a Budha + CF/IDE converter... and stick a 2gb CF card into that.
Bit awkward to swap the CF card, but works fine :-)
Tom UK
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persia wrote:
In a related topic, can I get a card reader to wrk on an Amiga?
This man is a sarcasm machine.
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=32495
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Semi related: Is there anything that can reasonably be done to avoid floppies going bad seemingly randomly. I use several different drives, three different machines, and the failure rate is still way high. Is it peculiar to Amigas? (No other system I have ever used has had anywhere near the same problem.) Thanks.
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Keep the disk away from: Magnetic fields, moist, heat, dust, direct sunlight. Also, clean the heads of your drives. (gently)
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marcfrick2112 wrote:
Well, basically yes, you will need to block up the High Density hole on the upper right, but HD disks used as DD this way are said to not be as reliable as actual double density disks....
HD disks aren't as reliable as DD full stop
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HopperJF wrote:
HD disks aren't as reliable as DD full stop
YMMV (like my case) but *technically*, yes, they are not as reliable.
PS. HopperJF, your blog link "no-worky" :-(
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Also, clean the heads of your drives. (gently)
I let my floppy drive cleaner disks do things their own way. There's only one cleaning mode on those.
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weirdami wrote:
Also, clean the heads of your drives. (gently)
I let my floppy drive cleaner disks do things their own way. There's only one cleaning mode on those.
Well, yeah. Obviously...
Perhaps he doesn't have a cleaner disk and he wants to open the drive and clean the heads with a cotton pad. I have done it many times. It must be done gently, otherwise you could make things worse.
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Clean the long screw and use spray to put oil on it. :rtfm:
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Compare Wikipedia:Floppy Disk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk#Floppy_trivia) - it's not 100.00% safe to use (previously formatted) HD disks for DD, but it's very safe (>99.9%). I've been mixing them for years (PC/A3k <-> A500) and the error rate in HD/DD disks wasn't noticably higher than with real DD.
Note that the only difference comes from the formatting done to them, the actual media has always been the very same since the early 90's.
I don't trust a floppy disk further than I can spit it anyway - Murphy states that it's the most important disk that dies next.
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I do have a disk cleaner, which I use with Klean (an old utility that simply spins dfX: for a few seconds). The problem is that disks can go bad in the same sitting. And by bad, I mean unformattable. All my Amigas have had problems this way -- and old Mac, PC or ST disks have stayed basically reliable. I will open up a drive and try the clean and oil. Thanks.
(I've eBayed my way through a bunch of drives, and would like to find an alternative strategy.)
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Get a catweasel and use it to backup your stuff to the pc, and use the cheap HD floppies but treat them as disposable.
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I don't use floppies to backup. I have redundant HDs, CDRW, zips(speaking of flakey) and SyQuest. But it's playing Russian Roulette to try to read/install legacy software.
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You have all been lots of help guys.
I have sourced some new DD disks which i never knew that i could still buy.
Thanks soooo much.
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Floppy disks are unreliable no matter which ones you use.
And same to are the floppy drives.
Sometimes you think your floppies have errors but its your drive messing up for a while.
I use PC floppies on my Amiga all the time with no problem
, you just have to format them.
I bite a piece of paper and chew it up then splodge it inside the notch on the HD floppy.
Regards