Subj : Re: floppy disks
To   : Bob Worm
From : Retroswim
Date : Fri May 02 2025 01:16 am

 BW> I was told that this is because the HD drives have narrower heads in order
 BW> to use the narrower tracks on high density disks. As a side effect when
 BW> you write to a DD disk with an HD drive you get narrow tracks written with
 BW> bigger gaps between them.

Mostly it will 'just work'. I've absolutely written DD disks in HD drives, then read them on DD drives just fine, plenty of times in the past.

But sometimes it doesn't, and what you're explaining is the usual cause. Trying another disk or drive usually gets you up and running.

Another mix-n-match problem you can sometimes have is trying to format a HD floppy as DD, for use in a DD drive. I don't know the specifics of this one, save for that the formulation of the oxide layer is slightly different between the two capacities. Again, it will mostly 'just work', but sometimes it won't, so you just grab another disk and try again. 
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