Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!samsung!munnari.oz.au!metro!cluster!nuts!cc!birjt
From: birjt@cc.nu.oz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Format Error question(s) & TestimonialREAD/NEW/FOLLOWUP
Message-ID: <12111.2611d538@cc.nu.oz>
Date: 28 Mar 90 23:28:23 GMT
References: <13211@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM>
Organization: University of Newcastle
Lines: 26

In article <13211@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM>, raf@PRC.Unisys.COM (Ralph A. Foy)
 writes:
> The Situation:
> 	A couple of times now, i've gotten errors while formatting a
> floppy.  since I get disks for 0.49 each, i don't mind tossing them,
> since it wouldn't be worth the effort to return them for a free
> replacement.
> 
> Now the question:
> 	is there a way to use disks with an error? M*-DOS is able to mark
> bad sectors, and was wondering if AmigaDOS would do the same.

Hello,
      I have a utility that I have called BFormat, this is short for 
Bad Disk Formater, obvious eh, but I can't remember where it came from.
     When it it used it formats as normal but when it comes to a bad part 
of the disk it maps out that particular track as being used ie in the
disks bitmap. This way when you later use the disk the DOS thinks that 
the suspect part of the disk is already used so it doesn't try to write 
to it, therefore no read/write error. 
    I use it to format all my disks and have never had a problem. One
last thing, when it is formating it counts all the tracks ie top
 and bottom so it appears to format up to 158 cylinders.

                                  Hope this helps,
                                          Russell