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From: dmw3@ur-tut.UUCP (David Walsh)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: How to make an unitialized disk
Message-ID: <311@ur-tut.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-Oct-87 22:41:20 EST
Article-I.D.: ur-tut.311
Posted: Fri Oct 23 22:41:20 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Oct-87 04:11:21 EST
References: <464@aucs.UUCP>
Reply-To: dmw3@tut.cc.rochester.edu.UUCP (David Walsh)
Distribution: na
Organization: Univ. of Rochester Computing Center
Lines: 29


  I know that everyone has their favorite method for making an unformated
disk, but you should know that their are different ways of doing it and
that your Mac will respond differently to each way.

  The easiest method is to get a magnet/bulk eraser and mess up the alignment
of the particles on the disk.  Easily done by waving the magnet/eraser over
the disk. When you insert the disk again it will say "This disk is unformatted,
do you want to initialize?"

  Another method is to destroy the boot block & directory blocks so that the
Mac will not recognize that it is a Mac disk.  All you have to do is take
your favorite block editor and zero those blocks.  This time inserting the disk
will get you the dialog but with the message "This is not a Macintosh disk, do
you want to initialize?"

  While you still get the same dialog this could confuse some beginning Mac
students, and I reccomend the first method.  However, the second box is a
message that they should be told about, as they might see it when their disks
decide to crash.  If they don't initialize it (i.e. the hit the <eject> button)
the disk might still be repairable.

  I realize that I answered more than was asked, but it might be useful to
some people out their who are just starting out.  Hope you can make use of
this info.

  Happy hacking,

     Dave Walsh  @ rochester!ur-tut!dmw3  (or something like that)