stro@ur-univax.UUCP (06/11/85)
I've used three brands of disks so far: Apple's Mac disks, Verbatim's DataLife,
and BASF's Micro FlexyDisks. Two Mac disks have been damaged (somehow) so that
they have permanent unreadable sectors, and two Data Life's have lost data, but
were not permanentely damaged. As of this time I've haven't had a problem with
the BASF's, but I only have five of these and haven't used them very much.
I'm interested in hearing from other people as to what disks they have had good
or bad experiences with. If people send me mail, I'll sumarize to the net.
{allegra|seismo|decvax}!rochester!ur-univax!stro
General Disclaimer: I have no affiliation or interest in any of the above
companies ( or any other disk companies), their employes, friends, and/or
relatives.
The MacRep told Mr. Fisk:
Its front-end wasn't at risk.
'The problem', he said,
'was in the head,
and it seems your Mac slipped a disk.'
- S R at the U of Rstro@ur-univax.UUCP (06/11/85)
I've used three brands of disks so far: Apple's Mac disks, Verbatim's DataLife,
and BASF's Micro FlexyDisks. Two Mac disks have been damaged (somehow) so that
they have permanent unreadable sectors, and two Data Life's have lost data, but
were not permanentely damaged. As of this time I've haven't had a problem with
the BASF's, but I only have five of these and haven't used them very much.
I'm interested in hearing from other people as to what disks they have had good
or bad experiences with. If people send me mail, I'll sumarize to the net.
{allegra|seismo|decvax}!rochester!ur-univax!stro
General Disclaimer: I have no affiliation or interest in any of the above
companies ( or any other disk companies), their employes, friends, and/or
relatives.
The MacRep told Mr. Fisk:
Its front-end wasn't at risk.
'The problem', he said,
'was in the head,
and it seems your Mac slipped a disk.'
- S R at the U of Rdave@rocksvax.UUCP (06/13/85)
I have had 2 bad "won't initialize" Apple disks. I had some problems
with Maxell. The only disks I have had no problems with are none so far
Nashua and Sony. Sample space is 5 Apple disks, 20 Maxell, 10 Nashua,
2 Sony. Maxell's have horrible labels, they pop up and get jammed in the
drive.
Hope to hear more, nothing is more frustrating than to have your program
go off the deep end, scribble on the disk and find that you can't read
the backup!!!!!! It happened to me more times than I care to remember.
Good trick to do if you can, call the eject system call somewhere about
main() { eject(..); rest... }. Haven't lost my source since then....
Dave
arpa: Sewhuk.HENR@Xerox.ARPA
uucp: {allegra,ihnp4,rochester,amd,sunybcs}!rocksvax!davejimb@amdcad.UUCP (Jim Budler) (06/14/85)
In article <20500003@rocksvax.UUCP> dave@rocksvax.UUCP writes: >... >2 Sony. Maxell's have horrible labels, they pop up and get jammed in the >... > >Hope to hear more, nothing is more frustrating than to have your program >go off the deep end, scribble on the disk and find that you can't read >the backup!!!!!! It happened to me more times than I care to remember. >... I must be doing something right. I clean my drives periodically, smoke my pipe, and try to keep the disks STORED out of dust, etc. NO problems. Repeat no problems. Maybe the key is in the storage. Nice little covered dick trays that hold about 40 disks. And I ALWAYS put the disk back. You can walk in at any time and never find more than 3 or 4 disks that I am currently using out on my work area. -- Jim Budler Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (408) 749-5806 UUCPnet: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amdcad!jimb Compuserve: 72415,1200 "... Don't sue me, I'm just the piano player!...."
keith@telesoft.UUCP (Keith Shillington @seventh) (06/18/85)
Distribution: I use Apple and Sony disks exclusively. I had an Apple disk go bad. I notice that the software has no way of "marking" a "bad" block. Apple learned much from us at UCSD, but I guess some of it didn't stick. Keith Allan Shillington (from the wayback machine: Editor-in-chief UCSD Pascal Users Manual)
jww@sdcsvax.UUCP (Joel West) (06/19/85)
I have used Maxell, BASF, Apple, Verbatim. I don't seem to have any manufacturer-specific problems. However, my external disk drive keeps finding disks unreadable that my internal reads fine (this is my 3rd drive; my 1st was stolen and the 2nd had the same problem). Does anyone know of a reason why the external would act up (flakey drive tolerances, or some such)? Also, I've heard that there is a program out there that will fix a trashed disk. Right now, when track 0 goes, my whole disk is unreadable by Copy II Mac (2.0) or the Apple Disk util, or the finder.
dee@cca.UUCP (Donald Eastlake) (06/19/85)
Thus far I have used exclusively Memorex discs and had no problems.
--
+1 617-492-8860 Donald E. Eastlake, III
ARPA: dee@CCA-UNIX usenet: {decvax,linus}!cca!deestuart@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Stuart A. Kurtz) (06/21/85)
Copy Mac II (v2.1) comes with a program called "MacTools", which can
be used to repair disks which the Mac finds otherwise unreadable. In
fact, I recently (inadvertantly) stuffed the wrong disk in while
doing a bit copy [no flames: I was exercising my legal right to back
up software I'd purchased], wiping out tracks 0 and 1 completely.
Using MacTools I was able to recover *every* file on the disk.
The repair takes a fair amount of time: depending on the extend of
the damage, the program may spin your disks for 20 minutes. Once the
program terminates, the hard work begins. You have numerous files
with essentially no finder information. (Minor things, e.g., file
name, type, and owner). MacTools comes with a binary editor, so you
can *usually* ascertain which recovered file was which. It also has
the capability of setting the finder info, once you figure out what
it should be.
The hardest stuff to deal with is the new (4.x) format MacWrite,
which sure looks like garbage. Enough comes out clear so that you
can *usually* figure out that you're looking at a WORD file type
rather than an APPL. It sure would be nice if WORD files had a
resource which said "I'm a WORD file!" where you could read it with
the binary editor!
Anyway, I've used MacTools to recover about 3 disks over the past 6
months. For 29.95 (check MacWorld adds), I'd say it's essential.
Stu
email: {kurtz | stuart}@{ihnp4!gargoyle.uucp | uchicago.csnet}psc@lzwi.UUCP (Paul S. R. Chisholm) (06/21/85)
In article <20500003@rocksvax.UUCP>, dave@rocksvax.UUCP writes: > Maxell's have horrible labels, they pop up and get jammed in the > drive. There seems to be a right way and a wrong way to put labels on a Maxell diskette. The natural way (stick the label on the front, then wrap it around to the back) doesn't seem to be the right way. The point is that the first side you put the label on is the more secure, so it's better to give the smaller side an hand in sticking. After having a few disks start to peel, I put my labels on starting on the back, making two sharp creases on the edge, and then smoothing it onto the front. -- -Paul S. R. Chisholm The above opinions are my own, {pegasus,vax135}!lzwi!psc not necessarily those of any {mtgzz,ihnp4}!lznv!psc telecommunications company.
dws@tolerant.UUCP (Dave W. Smith) (06/23/85)
I use most of the various flavors of disks that are available, but
have only had problems with Memorex, and then only on an external
drive which made strange noises, and has since been replaced. The
external drive would occasionally refuse to read Memorex disks that
were written on my internal drive, or written on friend's internal
drives. The new external drive (bless you, AppleCare) hasn't given
me any problems, but I've stopped buying Memorex just the same.
--
David W. Smith {ucbvax}!tolerant!dws
Tolerant Systems, Inc.
408/946-5667frascado@umn-cs.UUCP (Gregory Frascadore) (06/26/85)
In article <142@telesoft.UUCP> keith@telesoft.UUCP (Keith Allan Shillington) writes: >I use Apple and Sony disks exclusively. I had an Apple disk go bad. >I notice that the software has no way of "marking" a "bad" block. >Apple learned much from us at UCSD, but I guess some of it didn't >stick. > I would think it would be pretty easy to augment the disk initialization package to check for bad blocks, then create a badblock file and allocate all the bad blocks to that file. The badblock file could then be made undeletable so it would permanently prevent the blocks from being used. -- ------- Gregory Frascadore Computer Science Department University of Minnesota ...ihnp4!stolaf!umn-cs!frascado Gort, Klaatu barado nickto emacs!