Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!gvgpsa!treehouse!andyp
From: andyp@treehouse.UUCP (Andy Peterman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: Formatting Disks under 7.0
Message-ID: <907@treehouse.UUCP>
Date: 4 Jun 91 18:55:03 GMT
References: <1991Jun4.164800.16394@usenet.ins.cwru.edu>
Organization: The Treehouse
Lines: 26

In article <1991Jun4.164800.16394@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> jms20@po.CWRU.Edu (John M. Sully) writes:
>
>Last night I was feeling adventurous, and tried to format a bunch of
>disks that 6.0.7 said were bad.  They formatted (much to my surprise.).
>During formatting, however, the disks were verified twice (the format
>dialog said Re-Varifying format).  Is this some new feature that allows
>7.0 to accept disks that have small problems?  Should I be cautious
>about using disks when this occurs?  Thanks for your help.

This is indeed a new feature in 7.0.  If the verify finds one or two bad
tracks at the end of the disk, it will flag the bad sectors as used and
give you a useable, although somewhat smaller, disk.  I guess the second
verify is to check that everything is really OK.

I've got at least 20 bad disks (out of a stack of about 70) that I plan
on reformatting.  I seem to have been losing about 1 out of every 4
disks.  I've heard that the problem is that the software forces the
drive head to the last track before you eject it, which sometimes causes
that track to get ruined.  This is supposed to be fixed in newer (??)
system software where the head is positioned in the middle before
ejecting.  Hmmm....

-- 
Andy Peterman                       |  Everything you know 
treehouse!andyp@gvgpsa.gvg.tek.com  |       is wrong! 
(916) 273-4569                      |               FST