Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!sharkey!itivax!abaa!esker
From: esker@abaa.uucp (Lawrence Esker)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: HardDrive Surface Defects
Summary: What about bad sector mappers too?
Message-ID: <2415@abaa.UUCP>
Date: 5 Sep 89 20:19:55 GMT
References: <0761.AA0761@tronix>
Reply-To: esker@abaa.UUCP (Lawrence Esker)
Organization: Allen Bradley
Lines: 35

In article <0761.AA0761@tronix> rwm@tronix.UUCP (Russell McOrmond) writes:
>                         ... We sometimes get drives where we do not have
>a defect listing, or the listing may have been removed, and so far what we have
>to do is do a defect check on a PeeCee, and then Prep/Format on the 2090. Has
>any software been written to do such a check on the Amiga Itself.
>
>In the same manner, some formatting software for the PeeCee will automatically
>map out Defects while it is formatting, and does not require the entering in
>of the Defect list ...
>--
>  Russell McOrmond

Oh no!  Do you mean that the Amiga Format command does NOT map out bad tracks?
When I got my 2090A and ST-506 drive, the drive had a list of head and
cylinders that were bad, but the prep asked for Head, Cylinder, and Offset.
No where could I find what offset meant.  So what to do?  I blew it off and
never mapped out the tracks provided by the manufacturer.  When the format
program got to the bad tracks, it clunked and grind for a while and then kept
on going.  I have never had any read/write errors on my hard drive (two
partions at appx. 50 % and 90 % full).  I assumed format mapped the errors.

Any experts able to answer these questions for sure.

1) Does Amiga Format map out errors on hard disks?  Am I sitting on a data
   integrity time bomb?

2) Just what is the definition of offset and how do I know what to use since
   my drive does not give the numbers?

3) Anyone have a simple bad map reader and modifier for the 2090A contoller.

--
---------- Lawrence W. Esker ----------  Definition: FROWN
                                         A smile with a hangover.
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