Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!cunixf.cc.columbia.edu!cunixa.cc.columbia.edu!cmm1 From: cmm1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Christopher M Mauritz) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Extened Format Programs... Message-ID: <1990Dec10.150826.8845@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Date: 10 Dec 90 15:08:26 GMT References: <36743@cup.portal.com> <1990Dec10.053401.6544@ecst.csuchico.edu> Sender: news@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (The Daily News) Organization: Columbia University Lines: 37 In article <1990Dec10.053401.6544@ecst.csuchico.edu> ekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu (Ed Krimen) writes: >In article <36743@cup.portal.com> Yonderboy@cup.portal.com (Christopher Lee Russ >ell) writes: >>What is the current verdict on all of the extened format programs I have >>ran across. Is it safe to format a disk with these programs (is the data >>going to be secure). I have a program that formats 82 track and gives >>me near 800K is this OK? Also what is the twister format, is this good? > >I've been formatting my disks at 82/10 (828K -- the damn GEMDOS bug won't >recognize two sectors on the disk, so I don't get 830K) for 3 years, ever >since I've had an ST. No problems. I also format them with a 'twister' or >'skew' option. I recommend DC Format (version 3.2 is the latest, I think) >and Mystic. Mystic automatically formats with skew and the nice >thing is that it formats in the background. I also recommend DESKFMT >which is in RAMPLS12.LZH (or similar filename). I have NeoDesk 3.0 >and TOS 1.6 so I use those. While I had my ST, I ALWAYS used 10 sector formats and I don't I ever lost any data due to that. As Ed mentioned, you'll get slightly speedier performance if you set the interleave for 1 sector. I always used HyperCopy and Format11 by Matt Orsie. Almost any formatter will do the job, but you should look for one that also VERIFIES the format to make sure everything is OK. As for 11 sectors, well....it never worked on my ST and always munged files. Apparently, your drive has to spin at EXACTLY the proper speed (300rpm) for it to work. I wouldn't trust any important data to this format. Cheers, Chris ------------------------------+--------------------------- Chris Mauritz |D{r det finns en |l, finns cmm1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu |det en plan! (c)All rights reserved. | Send flames to /dev/null | ------------------------------+---------------------------