Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!hpda!hpcuhb!hpindda!warren From: warren@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Warren Burnett) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: HELP. Need diskette torture tester for finding bad disks. Message-ID: <6570031@hpindda.cup.hp.com> Date: 9 Jan 91 20:27:27 GMT References: Organization: HP Information Networks, Cupertino, CA Lines: 27 / hpindda:comp.sys.amiga / yorkw@stable.ecn.purdue.edu (Willis F York) / 12:34 pm Jan 7, 1991 / davego@polari.UUCP (dave oliphant) writes: >In article jkh@bambam.pcs.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) writes: >>I have tried another program called BFormat (don't know the author) which >>porported to format disks with bad sectors. It did this by first determining >>which sectors were bad, and then marking the sector bitmap as used for all >>the tracks with bad sectors. However, I found that the bad disks I formatted >>with BFormat would not store files reliably, but all would fail eventually. > >I regallary use Bformat, (I like the comand syntax better then format} >and if it finds a bad block (sector?) it;ll mark it as used.. >however.... My main problem with disks is DUST.. >so Bformat will mark the "bad" sector, then the dust particial/hair/ect >will have moved to a diffrent place the second time i run the program.. > As I remember, this was discussed about a year or so ago. I believe that this is unreliable because AmigaDOS reads and writes entire tracks, not just individual sectors. When a sector gets changed, the entire track is re-written starting from wherever the disc is rotationally. So a given sector will not always reside at the same physical location on its track. Simply marking a sector as used will not guarantee that the bad area on the disc will never be written to. Warren Burnett warren@hpindda.cup.hp.com