Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!deimos!usenet!cs.umr.edu!jamesh
From: jamesh@cs.umr.edu (James Hartley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: What are bad diskettes?
Message-ID: <490@umrisca.usenet.umr.edu>
Date: 25 Feb 90 22:49:03 GMT
Sender: usenet@usenet.umr.edu
Reply-To: jamesh@cs.umr.edu (James Hartley)
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Missouri - Rolla
Lines: 16


There has been a rash of postings lately about buying cheap 5.25" and 3.5"
media, and several have mentioned MEI (800-634-3478) as being a good source.
I recently bought a lot of 25 diskettes, and only the first reported any
errors upon formatting.

QUESTION:  When this had happened to me before, I tried reformatting again.
With the MEI disk mentioned above, no errors were reported after the second
format.  I first discovered this a couple of years ago with three bad
Scotch branded 5.25" diskettes which reported fewer and fewer bad sectors
upon each subsequent format.  Can anyone explain to me what is happening?

--
James J. Hartley                 Internet:  jamesh@cs.umr.edu
Department of Computer Science     Bitnet:  jamesh@cs.umr.edu@umrvmb.bitnet
University of Missouri -- Rolla      UUCP:  ...!uunet!cs.umr.edu!jamesh