CompuServe Messages

Tan, NO, you don't have to keep if off for 5 seconds and no you can't destroy a Write Protected disk by taking it out of the drive (although you can destroy a non-write protected disk by taking it out of the drive if it is being written to). The reason for the 5 second suggestion is to allow everything to re-set and the RAM to "bleed off". I quite often just turn the switch off and then back on again without any problems. The reason for the trashed disks is that the Amiga is multi-tasking and the disk write is just another task. Once set up, the program returns control to you (CLI prompt or Mouse re-activated) even thou it is still doing the write of the disk. Removing the disk (or doing a warm start) while the drive light is on trashes the disk since it isn't completed it's write. You get the same "trashing" on an IBM if you remove it while it's being written, it's just that the Amiga runs the equivalent of chkdsk each time you put a disk in the drive and reports the error where MS-DOS doesn't let you know you have a disk error…you have to check manually via chkdsk. Since the majority of computer failures come within the first few hours of use, I suspect you may have gotten one of the rare bad machines. Their failure rate is quite low according to our local dealer…he has had very few returns. Don