Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!mcnc!ecsvax!phco
From: phco@ecsvax.UUCP (John Miller)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: UNFORMATTING formatted PC floppies
Message-ID: <3173@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 19-May-87 09:23:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.3173
Posted: Tue May 19 09:23:10 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 20-May-87 04:43:39 EDT
References: <4327@nsc.nsc.com> <3156@ecsvax.UUCP> <231@grinch.grinch.UUCP>
Reply-To: phco@ecsvax.UUCP (John Miller)
Organization: Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Lines: 25

In article <231@grinch.grinch.UUCP> luis@grinch.UUCP (Luis Chanu) writes:
>In article <3156@ecsvax.UUCP> phco@ecsvax.UUCP (John Miller) writes:
>>. . . , but formatting
>>destroys all data on a disk.
>
>I have to dis-agree with you John.  I have used Mace Utilities, and it
>can recover a formatted diskette (hard or soft). . .
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I tested my first opinion by copying several files onto a floppy diskette,
checking that they were intact, then formatting the diskette, then
scanning the diskette with the low level edit feature of PC-Tools.  Just
as I thought, the entire data area of the diskette had been rewritten with
constant values (F6h), the directory area was zeroed, and the only 
meaningful information apparent was the boot record.  If Mace Utilities
or any other program can recover from this situation, I would love to hear
how they do it.

Would someone else please repeat my experiment and let me know if I'm nuts
on this?


-- 
                        John Miller  (ecsvax!phco)
                        Dept. of Pharmacology, Univ. of N.C.-Chapel Hill
                        Chapel Hill, NC 27514       (919) 966-4343