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[Fud]

Originally Posted by sim085

Hello, I have a few new PC floppy disks which work fine on PC. I would like to format these in such a way that I can use them as Amiga floppy disks (not to transfer files between PC and Amiga, but to use them as if Amiga floppy disks).

I had a similar thread in the past but what was suggested then is not working. I have Windows7. I insert the floppy disk and then from command promt I enter the following command:

FORMAT A: /T:80 /N:9

However I get the following output

H:\>FORMAT A: /T:80 /N:9
Insert new disk for drive A:
and press ENTER when ready...
The type of the file system is RAW.
The new file system is FAT.
Formatting 720K
Invalid media or Track 0 bad - disk unusable.

Does anyone know if I can format a PC disk to use it as an Amiga disk? or this is not possible?

Back in 2002 I purchased a A3000D 1.76 HD floppy drive off of ebay for $40 s/h included for my A1200D works great just sits a little higher then the 880K drive. Get an 1.76 drive as I did, format your pc floppies and put them in your Amiga as CrossDos will read them up to XP Pro it's cheaper route to take. I just copy Aminet files to the pc disk then copy them to my Amiga. My A1200 just got operational thanks to Amigakit's 300w p/s w/the optional cabling. The A1200 has GVP1230/33 4mb, 3.1 and CrossDos 7 Gold installed.

[sim085]

Originally Posted by amiman99

If you are not affraid to open you floppy drive then you can use cotton swabs and 91% isopropyl alcohol. Just swab both heads clean.

I already opened it to see how it works 91% isopropyl alcohol is the same as surgical spirit? Is contact cleaner better? Sorry do not know this stuff ...

[spirantho]

Can you just confirm exactly what you mean by "pc" floppy disks? They are DD ones, yes? Because HD ones will just fail on track 0 very often.

[sim085]

Originally Posted by spirantho

Can you just confirm exactly what you mean by "pc" floppy disks? They are DD ones, yes? Because HD ones will just fail on track 0 very often.

They are HD not DD ...

[spirantho]

That's your problem then. Using the wrong type of disk is never a good idea as the data will fail at just the wrong moment (if you get it working at all).

Seriously, there's so many cheap DD disks out there, forget HD ones, they're not worth it on a DD drive.