Using 1.44HD floppies with Mpc60II

tapedeck wrote:
a dd drive is a perfect reason to upgrade to an HxC floppy emulator. it seems expensive at first but it's worth it to never have to use floppies again, and have a totally compatible option.

ah yeah, I was really thinking about those too.. if my drive **** up I will for sure be switching to that if by then it's proven to hold up over time... with out error or degradation or what ever.

wasn't it like 70 bucks or something? anyways look at ebay.. people try selling floppy drives for the 60 at like 140 bucks last time I was looking at the bay.. I would get two HXC ones before dropping that much on a used floppy drive.

I own/have owned 6 different MPC60s, 4 - mk1 and 2 - mk2.
All were upgraded to 3.10 except 1 which was only 3.00 and the drive in none of them were able to read HD disk without the tape.

One was purchased new, one next to new and 2 more back in the 90s the other 2 were purchased used but had the old floppy drives as well.

jibber wrote:

ntalec wrote:Sounds like you have an aftermarket floppy drive not the OEM.

Why? I'm pretty sure my floppy drive is still the original OEM one.

From the OS 3.10 manual:

COMMENT: DS/DD disks are becoming difficult to obtain
because of the greater popularity of high-density disks (HD). If
you can’t find any DS/DD disks, HD disks instead will work fine
in the MPC60. However, if you take an HD floppy that has been
formatted in the MPC60 and try to read it in an MPC3000, the
MPC3000 will tell you that the disk is bad or not formatted. If this
happens, simply cover the HD hole in the lower right corner of
the disk with opaque tape. (This hole is located on the same
edge of the disk as the “HD” emblem, and unlike the other “write
protect” hole, has no sliding window.) This will trick the
MPC3000 into thinking that the floppy is a DS/DD disk and will
then be able to read it.

^ and my 60ii will not read HD floppies without tape.. it's using 2.12, and it has the black faceplate floppy drive that I believe is stock... not that colour means anything, but still.

My MPC60 had the black faceplate floppy as well. I don't know... i've never tried it with the old OS, but there's nothing about HD floppies in the old manual.

When i opened my 60 to install the new OS and memory expansion, it looked like i was the first person to ever have opened it. But hey... it's all just speculations. All i know is i can format and use HD floppies (without the tape trick) with my MPC60 that is running OS 3.10.

Maybe the drive is picky when it comes to the HD disks and it doesn't work with all the different brands. I never bought any HD floppies, i got about 100 assorted floppy disks (most of them SD) when i bought the 60 and S950.

well before the invention of the HD floppy drive, they didn't have the sensor that looks out for the hole like 1.44 drives have (and newer released DD drives) from what I can tell.. so some older drives might not even know to make the detection... as the old DD drives predate the thought of even having a distinguishing hole in the new HD disks... so it is possible. I guess it depends on when exactly the disk drive was manufactured and using which design.

All I can say is 6 for 6 with v3 software and drives I know to be original is what I have for my reference.

ntalec wrote:All I can say is 6 for 6 with v3 software and drives I know to be original is what I have for my reference.

if that doesn't settle it, I dont know what does.

It's 6 years later but I'm probably not the only one who read this thread after that time.

1. There is no any higher risk in terms of data corruption when using HD disks in DD drive.
2. There is no additional "wear out" while using HD disks in DD drive.

MPC60, Amiga 500 - Both are using same DD drives - I have been using my Amigas for years with HD disks without any problems.

BTW. I'm using the only HD with my MPC60 and even disks (dusty) from 15years ago still working properly.

Edd.Buczybuda wrote:BTW. I'm using the only HD with my MPC60 and even disks (dusty) from 15years ago still working properly.

Yes but is the disk drive in your MPC 60 one that could work in HD and DD mode? That changes the circumstances dramatically. The actual film on a DD disk has different physical properties to an HD one, so corruption is possible although some people like you that never experience it.

One such example I have experienced in some instances are those that I've supplied the S-900 OS4.0 boot disk to on a HD disk with tape on the side to be able to format it on a DD drive. A small percentage of those people end up either not being able to read the disk at all or after a few instances of booting off of it and saving to it to it the disk just gets corrupted. This however didn't happen when they were using DD disks.

You will find that most Amiga 500 drives actually have dips on the back to operate in DD, HD and DD Shugart mode which means the read/write heads can navigate around the different film properties of disks.

It's original DD drive that MPC came with (2.12 FW)

HD and DD have the same amount of tracks, that is why it is possible to use HD inside DD and format it without issues.

The only difference between HD and DD is "BPI", which is directly connected with physical material that has been used to construct the "tape", inside of the floppy disk.

Higher BPI means that material offers less "distortion" during read/write process which elevates the level of "compression" on the media.

I have never seen any problem with HD inside DD drive - It sounds like voodoo to me.

Physically you are able to write as low density on the magnetic media as you like... ba! you could even write with higher density than disk was designed.

BTW. The higher quality material used in HD disks should even result in less "corrupted" data after a long time - And this is what I have observed during the years with my Amiga