page@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) (12/19/87)
>Check out FFormat, a program by Andy Rachmat (sp?). It formats a disk >in half the time it takes AmigaDOS format. I wonder about this. I ran it with verify mode on, like FORMAT does, and didn't see such a dramatic increase in speed. What really concerned me is FFormat writes all zeros to the sectors, and then checks the zero'd sectors. Seems to me writing a varying pattern to the disk is a better test of verification. FORMAT writes like: UBYTE word; register i2, i3, sec; UBYTE *val2 = "Oo"; /* second char of pattern */ UBYTE *val3 = "SsWw"; /* third char of pattern */ for (sec=1;sec<4;sec++) { /* do four sectors this way */ for(word=0; word<BLOCKSIZE; word++) buf[word] = sprintf("D%c%c%d", val2[i2], val3[i3], word) Write_to_disk(unit, buf); } This is from memory off the top of my head, as I don't have an Amiga handy and it was a long time ago I studied what FORMAT did. The longwords in the sectors look like DOS%d, where %d is the longword offset into the sector. That's why sector 0, longword zero says "DOS\0" ... because that's what FORMAT writes there. After four sectors like this, it picks a different pattern, like DOW%d or DoS%d or something, and writes it for four sectors. I don't claim this is the best test for checking failures; a extensive test would write all zeros, then all ones, then alternate zeros and ones (hex AA and 55), testing after each pass. But at least this verification tests some data, over characters 0-127 of the ASCII character set, rather than FFormat's zeros. I'll stick with Format, thank you. HOWEVER, if what you really want to do is quickly zap a disk of all its files, you just want to unlink all the files from the hashlist in the root block. Doug Walker's DiskWipe does this. You also have to rebuild the disk's block allocation bitmap, and I don't remember if DiskWipe does. [I guess it must, else the disk validator would get re-run and rebuild it anyway] ====== Somebody wanted to rescue data from a file when it was locked for writing by DOS and the program got a Task Held requester. You can do this with Sectorama if you know the pathname to the file; start it up, Find the hash value for the first directory name in the path, Jump to that block (possibly follow the hash chain to the one you want), and keep doing this until you're at the directory and file you were looking for. Then use the Data and Write commands to step through the data blocks, saving to some file. You won't get any buffers that weren't flushed to disk, but you'll rescue some of your data, anyway. It easy to cook up a simple RESCUE command to do all this for you. ===== >There is a program called GOMF (Get Outta My Face. I'm not kidding.) GOMF1.0 has some problems. I had a bunch of windows open on a custom screen, so I went to WHAP them. I couldn't see I had WHAP'ed all the windows and the screen (and it didn't tell me), so the next time I WHAP'ed a window it destroyed my editor, which was the active window on the Workbench screen. Since I'd already LOST some work, I just kept WHAPping things - my CLIs, clock, etc, until there was nothing left but the WB screen. I WHAPped it and ... GOMF went GURU #3. ===== All the aformentioned programs (except for RESCUE) are publicly available; I got them from People/Link and the Fish Disks. ..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
peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (12/25/87)
Is there any way to format a bad disk (one with bad tracks)? I'd like to format some of my bad disks with the bad tracks preallocated. They'd be useful for archiving low-priority stuff, at least. If not, that'd be a useful addition to 1.3. Also, is it just my imagination, or does AmigaDOS get more bad disks than more conventional track/sector DOSes like MS-DOS. I seem to get more errors, and when I get one I seem to lose more. Seems to me this track-at-a-time stuff greatly reduces the reliability of the disks. -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.
kruger@16bits.dec.com (Hart for CCCP chief in '88) (01/15/88)
I have just done a bulk purchase from Sony, and have ordered more. So far, no one has complained about any of the 2400. I have seen places charge $.99 for Sony's. According to Sony, if that's true, they are selling single sided disks and relabeling them as double. Why Sony doesn't do something about this is a good question. In any case, no matter what the disks are like, you have to deal with someone trustworthy. Otherwise, you're sunk. If anyone wants in on another shipment in the future, you can send me mail. The price is $1.05 + UPS to you (whatever that is). This is <not> a commercial offering. I've done this in-house at DEC as a co-op type of deal. dov