ray@micomvax.UUCP (Ray Dunn) (03/02/88)
In article <990@neoucom.UUCP> wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) writes: > >I have read several times and have seen discussed on this network, >a phenomenon referred to as sector creep. Apparently, sector creep >is a cumulative phenomenon that causes disk data errors after >extended time has passed. > Sorry, but unless I have missed some important technical publication describing this phenomina, it does not match with the known properties of a sectored disk. The sector header that precedes each data block is written once only by the low level format program (inithd, hdinit or equivalent in the PC world, *NOT* the format program which just writes the FAT's etc). This sector header is read by the controller to identify the following data sector, and, if a write is to be performed, the writing starts at a position relative to this sector header. Yes there can be slop on the absolute position of the data from write to write (one of the reaons the data is written preceded by sync bytes), but it is being written each time from a *fixed* reference point. Thus no creep. Sorry. Ray Dunn. ..philabs!micomvax!ray