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From: jfbruno@rodan.acs.syr.edu (John Bruno)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Extened Format Programs...
Message-ID: <1990Dec10.092558.1846@rodan.acs.syr.edu>
Date: 10 Dec 90 09:25:58 GMT
References: <36743@cup.portal.com>
Organization: None.
Lines: 39

In article <36743@cup.portal.com> Yonderboy@cup.portal.com (Christopher Lee Russell) 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?  

Probably, but that depends on your particular drive.  It's beyond the specs
for the drive to ask it to go to track 81 (track 80 is the "official" max
number of tracks.) There is no error returned from the drive if it can't get
to track 80 or 81 (the first track is track #0), it will simply go to track
79 and act like everything is fine.  The only time you'll know if it worked
or not is if you fill the disk completely and see if all of the files are
complete and intact. Some drives can do it, some can't.  I don't even think
you can generalize between manufacturers, it depends on the individual unit.
If it works the first time, however, you should be able to count on it.

Some software will put extra sectors on every track, 9 is standard, I think,
but some will try to go for 11.  Once again, I don't think that you'll get
an error if it fails.  Instead of the head not making it to a track, as
above, the extra sector method will try to keep writing sectors to the same
track, hoping that the last sector doesn't overwrite the first one(s).

Some software will combine both of the above methods and can get up to around
1MB, I think.  However, I advise you NOT to do this on your backup floppies.
Especially not method #2 above.  I just don't trust pushing the hardware beyond
specs. I bet that over the months/years, you'd end up with a corrupted disk.

>Also what is the twister format, is this good?

Twister is to get better speed from the disk, not more storage.  What happens
is the sectors are staggered from track to track in such a way that reading
long files will be quicker because you save some extra revolutions, the drive
won't have to wait for the sector to spin under the head.  Twister is reliable
since it just staggers the sectors. You don't get any extra storage.

>
>        ....Thanks ahead of time... .....Yonderboy@cup.portal.com

---jb