Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!uw-beaver!mit-eddie!mintaka!yale!cs.utexas.edu!usc!srhqla!demott!kdq
From: kdq@demott.COM (Kevin D. Quitt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: MEI/Micro Center floppy disks
Message-ID: <946@demott.COM>
Date: 10 Nov 90 21:17:17 GMT
References: <7948@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM>
Reply-To: kdq@demott.COM (Kevin D. Quitt)
Organization: DeMott Electronics Co., Van Nuys CA
Lines: 23

In article <7948@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM> rcw@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM (Robert White) writes:
>
>Another oddity.  If you try to format them first, and they fail to 
>format correctly, and then you try to format them a second time, often
>they will be ok.
>
>Pretty wierd, huh?

    Not at all.  Often the disks have small surface defects which wil cause
a format failure only if located in certain areas of the track information.
There are enough vagaries from one formatting to the next, the the spot
may fall into a non-used area the second time.  Another possibility (rare,
but I *have* seen it) is an ara that somehow got highly magnetized, and
requires multiple erasures to bring to a writable state.  From that point
on, it's ok.

-- 
 _
Kevin D. Quitt         demott!kdq   kdq@demott.com
DeMott Electronics Co. 14707 Keswick St.   Van Nuys, CA 91405-1266
VOICE (818) 988-4975   FAX (818) 997-1190  MODEM (818) 997-4496 PEP last

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