#BFORMT.ARC
7 messages in this thread
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
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
Then what is the program BFORMT.ARC for????? To block tracks is in the
description!
G.P
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
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.
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
George,
to block TRACKS…not SECTORS which is what you asked originally.
Don