Re: 1440

[Mark Blunier <blunier@ocslink.com>]

On Sun, 5 Mar 2000, bug1 wrote:

> It works for me
> 
> 1440KBytes = 1440x1024 = 1474560 Bytes which is the size of the image.
> 
> I suspect the 1.38MB capacity your refering to is after its had its high
> level format.
> 
> Remember the image contains the filesystem layout as well, your disk
> only needs a low level format before using either rawrite or dd to write
> the image to the floppy, dont use the copy command to move the image to
> your disk, that wont work.
> 
> For the record a 3.5" floppys unformated capacity is 2.0MB, they can be
> low level formatted to 1920 MB or so. They can reliably be formated to
> 1.72MB on i386 architectures (not sure about others). I dunno why people
> format floppys to 1.44MB i guess its just because microsoft did it that
> way for a long time before changing to formatting to 1.72MB.
> 
Some of us with older hardware have trouble with the funky formats.  For
instance, on my old 486, a syslinux boot disk on a 1.44MB floppy usally
takes 3 or 4 retries before it boots.  The 1.72MB floppy averages about
a dozen retries for it to boot, and the 1920MB floppy is next to useless.
On the other hand, the same disk will boot fine in my 486 laptop.

Mark