Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!watcgl!electro!ignac
From: ignac@electro.UUCP (Ignac Kolenko)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: DOES TOS 1.4 DO THIS?
Message-ID: <660@electro.UUCP>
Date: 30 Jul 89 18:48:23 GMT
References: <8907260006.AA28980@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <1625@atari.UUCP>
Reply-To: ignac@electro.UUCP (Ignac Kolenko)
Organization: Electrohome Ltd., Kitchener, ON
Lines: 38

In article <1625@atari.UUCP> apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt) writes:
>TOS has always marked bad sectors when formatting, in exactly the same
>way that MS-DOS does.  No other operation marks bad sectors, under
>either TOS or MS-DOS, except perhaps a utliity which does that
>explicitly.
>
>This is a good time for the reminder that TOS 1.4's desktop format
>operation is MS-DOS compatible, but other programs which format disks
>are not necessarily compatible.
>




hmmm, thats real interesting allan. my st will format a disk with known bad
sectors, and after the format is complete, it will report 728000 (or whatever)
bytes free. no mention of bad sectors. just a nice rosy report that the disk
is perfect. 

if it has always marked bad sectors, why does the desktop stop and say that
the disk is unusable sometimes, and other times it finished a format,
whereas MSDOS will finish a format as normal, and report that xxxx sectors
may be bad. in this respect, TOS and MSDOS are much different.

also, if bad sectors are marked, why does the desktop insist on copying data
on these "marked bad sectors"???? ie: you can do a copy from the desktop, and
every once in a while the desktop will pop up a dialog box saying "Data may
be damaged". if bad sectors were marked in the MSDOS way, the operating
system would know not to write data to that sector in the first place!!!

will the truth ever be known???


-- 
=====Ignac A. Kolenko (The Ig)           watmath!watcgl!electro!ignac=====
     co-author of QuickST, and the entire line of Quick Shareware!!!!
       "I don't care if I don't win, 'cause I don't care if I fail"
             from 'Youth Of Today' by SUBURBAN DISTORTION