Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!nsc!taux01!cyosta From: cyosta@taux01.UUCP ( Yossie Silverman ) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: how do you recover from a bad floppy disk? Message-ID: <2271@taux01.UUCP> Date: 6 Aug 89 10:18:20 GMT References: Reply-To: cyosta@taux01.UUCP ( Yossie Silverman ) Organization: National Semiconductor (IC) Ltd, Israel Lines: 31 In article murray@andromeda (Murray Karstadt) writes: . .At one time or another most of us will get the feared: "This disk is unreadable .Do you want to initialize it?" .The answer is of course to have a good backup and not worry about message. But .what are your favorite tricks if you not have a good backup. I usually end up .ejecting the disk and reinserting it. If that fails I try the disk with a .different drive. If this does not work I'll rebuild the desktop .(Option + Command key) Lastly I'll try Disk First Aid, but none of the above .seems to work out that well. . .thanks for any info .murray A trick that has worked for me in MOST cases is to heat the disk up a little. I do this by placing it on my mac (when I owned a Mac+ which got quite hot on top) or between the Hard Disk and the bottom of the mac (nowadays). The disk will usually read after this. In many cases it remembers that it was readable and is still so even when it cools down! I read somwhere long ago that this works because the diskette drives change their alignment slightly after some time has passed and they "warm up", a diskette recorded in a warm drive will not read too well in a cold one, and visa versa. I don't recomend using a toaster to heat the dikettes up (never tired it, but somehow doubt that it will work). - Yossie -- Yossie Silverman What did the Caspian sea? National Semiconductor Ltd. (Israel) cyosta%taux01@nsc.nsc.COM or RPR1YOS@TECHNION.BITNET NSA LSD FBI KGB PCP CIA MOSAD NUCLEAR MI5 SPY ASSASSINATE SDI -- OOCLAY ITAY