From: bjjlyates@NOSPAMbellsouth.net   
      
   On 8/4/08 4:57 AM, in article 5wzlk.3778$%b7.878@edtnps82, "A Nother"   
    wrote:   
      
   >   
   > For the sake of completeness, I should mention that, while 3½-inch HD disks   
   > have a different material from regular (720K) 3½-inch disks, there is no   
   > difference in track widths, ruling out the problem of overwriting. Also, the   
   > coating materials are similar enough that a 720K diskette can often be   
   > formatted for 1.44 MB without any errors reported during the format.   
   > However, the non-HD disks are highly marginal with the HD format, and you   
   > are highly likely to encounter reliability problems. Recent 1.44-MB systems   
   > have implemented a sensor that detects the HD hole to prevent non-HD disks   
   > form being incorrectly formatted. It is probably also undesirable to format   
   > 3½-inch HD disks as 720K, but I haven't checked into that.   
   >   
      
   I've used 3.5" HD disks on my TI-99 as 720K without any issues just by   
   taping over the HD hole.   
      
   OTOH, I've had MANY 3.5" HD disks created on a PC become unreadable after a   
   short period of time. Excessive failure rate. Stored nicely.   
      
   And on my third hand, I had a 3.5" HD PC disk that I left in my car in   
   Georgia weather (both Atlanta and south Georgia) for about 3 or 4 years. I   
   hesitated to put it in my PC, but it read without an issue.   
      
   These are the same brand of disks across the different systems. I also must   
   admit that I've had to replace the 3.5" drive several times on the PC (I   
   suspect the drive quality is pretty low). The last, a pull from a server   
   (probably never used) has lasted two years. I had one new one last 1 disk   
   before it failed... Yes, I tried cleaning it by taking it apart, I've become   
   an expert, being an old fart who has owned his own disk drives since 1983.   
      
   Seemed like every disk failure was followed by the need to replace the   
   drive.   
      
   Also, I have 5.25" disks dating all the way back to '83. I go through them   
   from time to time, and I might find one or two (out of 200 or so) that might   
   have a bad sector. I've thrown out less than  two dozen over the past 20   
   years, and 10 of those were a box of Opus disks.   
      
   Lesson to be learned - store your disks in your car! :-D   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)