Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!necntc!dandelion!ulowell!page
From: page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Diskdoctor Woes
Message-ID: <2412@swan.ulowell.edu>
Date: 12 Jan 88 17:50:50 GMT
References: <2058@gryphon.CTS.COM> <2392@swan.ulowell.edu> <8020@g.ms.uky.edu>
Reply-To: page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page)
Organization: University of Lowell, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 32

sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) wrote:
>On the other hand, Disksalv just recently saved a disk for the 11th time.

Eleven times?  Time for a new disk!

>What I'd *really* like to see is something like fsck that would repair a
>disk in place, instead of having to copy the files.

That's what DiskDoctor is supposed to do.  It's not easy, in any case.
I agree it's needed, especially now that we're starting to see 40MB
disks and larger on the Amiga.

>A feature I'd *really* *really* like to see would be for such a program
>to reformat bad tracks, and if they are truly bad (oxide problems), create
>a file called "BAD_TRACK_##".  The file's blocks would be those of the bad
>track, and it would have write permission disabled.

I think that would have to be a different program (that formats the
tracks) since an 'fsck' type utility would be used for reading &
moving mostly.  The only problem with this approach is that you lose
if you FORMAT it or use DiskCopy or something, which doesn't look at
the bitmap and scribbles all over the disk.

>Question:  Would the validator grok this?

I don't see why not.  Just mung the disk and say "hey, validate this."

..Bob
-- 
Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept.  page@ulowell.edu  ulowell!page
"I've never liked reality all that much, but I haven't found a
better solution."		--Dave Haynie, Commodore-Amiga