Tech information on floppy disks drives and media, by Herbert R. Johnson
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Contents copyright Herb Johnson 2005. Last update Dec 11 2005. Converted to HTML document Jan 10 2006. Quoted material is copyright by the respective authors of that material and used with permission. For more info or for reuse or questions, email me via this Web link. Corrections are appreciated.
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Index
Technical introduction For more floppy disk drives, diskette and controller info, including our list of
original floppy drive manuals and OEM tech notes, follow this link to drives.html. For 8-inch drives in particular,
check the Shugart 800/801 documents there for tech notes on the design and use of drives and media.
Data about floppy drives and media
Facts on hard sectored "drives" and diskettes
Shugart 800/801 model variations
Floppy drive rotation adjustment
IBM 5.25-inch floppy drives and HD (1.4M) operation
Read problems on old diskettes: dust, mold (mould), coatings, interleave
Use of 3.5" drives in 5.25" systems (year 2003)
3.5" drives: changing rotation speed (300 360 RPM)
300kbps operation of 1.2MB 5.25" drives
100 100 tpi 5.25" drives
Epson PX-8 drives - odd format
35-track drives and media
3.25" drives
Single density diskettes same as double density
High density diskettes NOT same as SD, DD
Single sided vs double sided and "flippy"
replacing old 3.5" drives with "new"