poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier) (07/12/89)
In article <448@sagpd1.UUCP> monty@sagpd1.UUCP (Monty Saine) writes: > > The last batch I bought from MEI (about two months ago) had 5 disks > out of 25 that I had to format twice to get then to pass. I only use them > for one time recording/archiving. They don't hold up under repeated usage. The Amiga's track format makes it a real bad idea to retry formatting a floppy that has failed to format once. When writing to a track, the entire track is read into a buffer, the new sector is inserted, and the track is then written out. There is no "hard format" on the disk, so the new copy of the track is not rotationally aligned with the old. If your disk has a media flaw in one track, some writes will miss it but some will hit it. Try enough times and you will probably "succeed" in the format, but you will eventually have a corrupt disk when that track starts being used. Cheers, Charles Poirier