CompuServe Thread

#BFORMT.ARC

7 messages in this thread
#7730From: George Parrson IIIDec 2, 1990 6:24 PM
I am having trouble finding a program that will format my diskettes, and then mark-out the bad sectors (or hard-Erros). I downloaded BFormt.arc, but everytime I donwload it, it send an error code 121, and it also failed the CRC check. Is there another program that I can use to Format my disks the way I want them? G. Paterrson
#7778From: Don Curtis/SYSOPDec 3, 1990 12:24 AM
George, There's no way to mark bad sectors on AmigaDOS floppies. The drive handler reads and writes whole tracks at once. Because of that, the physical position of any one sector on the disk can very easily change from one time the disk is written to the next time it's written. Thus, there's not way to say sector #x on track #y is bad so not to use it. You should always use Double Side, Double Density (DSDD) disks with the Amiga. They should be certified 100% error free and from a reputable manufacturer. You should also make sure your drive heads are clean. If you suddenly start to get errors on disk you had no problems with before…the first thing you should do is clean the heads. You can get a 3.5" floppy disk cleaning kit at almost any computer store. If you've done that and still get errors on only a particular few disks…I'd trash those disks. If they're guaranteed…send them back to the manufacturer for replacement under the warranty. If you get errors on most of the disks you use, your drive may have become out of alignment. This is usually indicated by having no problems reading/writting a disk that's been freshly formatted on the drive, but having problems with older disks or disks formatted on another drive. Don
#7829From: George Parrson IIIDec 3, 1990 11:08 AM
Then what is the program BFORMT.ARC for????? To block tracks is in the description! G.P
#7869From: Betty Clay/SYSOPDec 3, 1990 8:17 PM
George, The Amiga can mark an entire track as being bad, but cannot mark individual sectors as being bad. I think that BFORMT.ARC marks an entire track as bad if it finds any bad sector on that track. Betty
#7873From: George Parrson IIIDec 3, 1990 8:44 PM
Well I could handle that, I just don't want to throw away a good diskette! Hey, if I loose, say 30,000 bytes, that's ok, it's better than loosing 800,000!!! G.P.
#7896From: MicroSearch/Greg WhiteDec 4, 1990 12:15 AM
One problem with this idea is that in many cases the first error you see is just that…the first of several. Then what happens is that you lock out the bad track and then fill the rest full of data. A week later you go to pull some data off the disk and you get "Volume XXX has a read/write error" and there goes some good data. So you bite the bullet and lock out another bad track… and so on..and so on. Disks are too cheap now to risk data loss. With me a disk gets two chances. I initially format it and if it fails, I tap it on two or three corners on the desk to free it up (sometimes new disks are slightly off-center in the case and bind). If it fails the second time, I crack it in half and toss it out. Greg Greg White / MicroSearch 72230,1617 We listen to our customers..carefully
#7905From: Don Curtis/SYSOPDec 4, 1990 12:59 AM
George, to block TRACKS…not SECTORS which is what you asked originally. Don