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From: sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Disk Recovery Using MacZap [was Re: HELP!!]
Message-ID: <234@esquire.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 21-Nov-87 21:17:01 EST
Article-I.D.: esquire.234
Posted: Sat Nov 21 21:17:01 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 23-Nov-87 06:48:13 EST
References: <537@eplrx7.UUCP> <1114@cg-atla.UUCP>
Reply-To: sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten)
Organization: DP&W, New York, NY
Lines: 48
Summary: The best, but...

In article <1114@cg-atla.UUCP> hunt@cg-atla.UUCP (Walter Hunt X7031) writes:
>	I have recently had hard disk problems with my Jasmine 80.
>The solution to recovery of my data was actually quite simple.  It
>is MacZap, from MicroAnalyst in Texas  (sold by MacConnection).  If
>there is a utility that can give you access to your data, MacZap
>will do it.  It comes with a badly-written manual, but good
>telephone support.  If you have enough floppies, you can even back
>up the entire disk from MacZap  (the J-80 was about 35% full; it
>took 38 floppies for me. :-(  )

MacZap is the only way to go when that fatal day comes (and you haven't done
a backup in weeks...).  However, there's one thing that is not mentioned in
the manual and that I found out only after it was too late.

MacZap comes with "Parameter" files that describe various different brands 
of hard disks.  These files are used if your disk gets so trashed that
the header blocks (the ones that tell the Mac where the first usable
sector is, where the directory is, etc.) are erased or munged.  Thus, by
loading the correct parameter file, you effectively tell MacZap where to 
look for the directory, file allocation table, etc.  This is one of the things
that lets MacZap recover disks when other programs give up.

MacZap also lets you create a parameter file for your hard disk, since
Micro Analyst only provides them for about a dozen different brands.  But
what they *don't* tell you is that the parameter files they supply aren't
always correct.  In my case, I had recently reinitialized my Dataframe 20XP
with the newest Manager, and this caused some of those parameters to change.
When the disk later got trashed (a long, boring story in and of itself),
MacZap produced (as always) a perfect directory of every file on the disk
and then proceeded to recover garbage for each.  Sigh.  Upon reformatting,
I created a parameter file and compared it to the standard DF 20 file.
As you can probably guess, they were different.

This is certainly *not* Micro Analyst's fault, but it is something that might
happen to other people with Dataframes (or even other brands).

Other than this, and the atrocious manual, MacZap is the *best*.  Although I
couldn't use it that one time, it's never failed me since (although I do
backups *much* more regularly now... except I haven't had much time this
week, and... :-) ).

Hope this helps someone recover some data.  Usual disclaimers apply.  Your
mileage may vary.

-- 
   Steve Baumgarten             | "New York... when civilization falls apart,
   Davis Polk & Wardwell        |  remember, we were way ahead of you."
   ...!seismo!cmcl2!esquire!sbb |                           - David Letterman