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Format FD frm 1.44MB to higher capacity

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4 replies

by scozans

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I have this usual 3.5" floppy disks that i need to produce a copy to another 3.5" floppy disks but when i try copying it the usual way it cannot be copied because of its format (<1.44MB). If i can only format it exactly the same capacity as the source, but i don't know how.

4 replies

by timwalsh

What is the format of the floppy in question?

A "standard" double-sided, high-density 3.5-inch floppy provides a "true" 1.38MB of formatted usable space. Floppy manufacturers, like hard-drive manufacturers equate 1 MB to 1 million bytes when in reality it is equal to 1.024 million bytes.

A "standard" floppy drive CANNOT format a "standard" floppy to anything higher on its own.

Some vendors (most notably Microsoft) at one time distributed setup floppies that were formatted to a higher capacity (about 1.8MB if I remember correctly). However these floppies were created using special software and special drives that aren't available to the public.

At one time (in the '80s), Toshiba came out with a 2.88MB drive. Again this was a special drive that required specific media that could only be read in that drive. It was not compatible with a "standard" floppy.

There used to be some DOS utilities available on the Internet that would allow you to format a "standard" floppy as 1.8MB. I don't remember the utility's names or where to find them.

by crapaud ergo sum

Replace the floppy drive with 120mg drive. These drives are backwards compatible and ?can? be reasonably priced.

Otherwise, depending on what you are doing, zip the original to hard-drive and then copy to disk.

Or search original for files not needed??

Good luck

todd

by thechas

Windows uses some of the floppy capacity when it formats a disk.

Try booting from a true DOS floppy, and formatting the target floppy from DOS.
format a: /u
Then, copy in DOS mode also.
copy a: a:

Chas

by mvicente

I used sometimes a software called Winimage to copy setup disks that was larger than 1.44 Mb with Winimage, this is shareware but you can try it and it makes an image of the disks after you format the disk in a format larger than 1.44 Mb.
I hope this would help you.

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