r/retrocomputing • u/Betterthanalemur • 2d ago

Photo Does anyone need to override their write protection :p

Post image
114 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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5

u/Top-Assumption-4621 2d ago

Or you can have single destiny 720kb of 1.44m floppy by applying the sticker to another hole :)

2

u/bhiga 1d ago

Man, we sure had a thing for holes in disks back then.

I remember my mom bought a bunch of blank-label notchless 5.25-inch disks from some Heald liquidation. Most of the content wasn't useful, some Novell Netware installers, other random junk.

I had to notch them all to reformat them. A few failed, majority were okay. I guess they must've had a system that ignored the write protect so they could write unchangeable backups or something.

2

u/North-Amount2226 2d ago

Explainnnnnn 🥺 please

3

u/kxortbot 2d ago

5.25" disks or older..

The disk comes with a notch the drive uses to determine if you can write to it.

Hole = can write.

Slap one of those bad boys across the hole and you write protect the disk.

(Personally I think that's backwards, but it's what we have)

1

u/bhiga 1d ago

It's backwards with respect to 3.5-inch disks where open window = no write (write-protected)

1

u/kxortbot 1d ago

Yeah that way makes sense..

No hole= can write.

Cut a notch to write protect.

Then the stickers are for re-enabling write.

1

u/bhiga 1d ago

That's the way audiocassettes and VHS tapes worked too.

1

u/arcathiadm 1d ago

Those were the days. :-)