Re: Floppy formatting questions

On Mon, 7 May 2007 13:48:15 -0700
"Jim Langston" <tazmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

A normal 3.5" 2mb unformatted floppy has the ability to store 2mb of
data. When you format it you write information to the floppy stating
where the tracks and cylinders are. Which is where it becomes 1.44mb.
The 1.44mb formatting gives track/cylinder information that is able to
store 1.44mb of data. If you gave different track/cylinder information,
you could store 2mb of data.

It's worth mentioning that the capacity disappears into the gaps
between the sectors and that there are two ways to recover it. You can use
larger sectors (for maximum capacity one sector per track) and so have fewer
gaps but you will waste space in partially filled sectors - perhaps more
than was used in the gaps. The other way is to use smaller gaps and thus
squeeze more sectors per track - however this does not always work well as
not all drivers, controllers and software stacks will support changing the
gap size.

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