lharris@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Leonard Harris) (02/11/89)
Has anyone else had h this problem? If I format a MAC disk on the atari through spectre and then take it to a mac - plus or se, the disk is usually damaged and reported as "not an HFS disk". If I format on a mac - it sometimes works fine, but usually I get a "disk damgaed - repair disk" message on the atari. I have tried different drives and different system/finder combinations with no improvement - yes, I am using a translator 1. any ideas? /leonard
dlm@druwy.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) (02/14/89)
in article <1989Feb10.204714.27050@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu>, lharris@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Leonard Harris) says: > If I format a MAC disk on the atari through spectre and then take it to > a mac - plus or se, the disk is usually damaged and reported as "not an HFS > disk". If I format on a mac - it sometimes works fine, but usually I get > a "disk damgaed - repair disk" message on the atari. The Translator does a lousy job of adjusting to the actual speed an Atari drive is spinning at. This one problem causes a lot of headaches when moving disks too/from Macs. Often disks formatted with the Translator are readable on a Mac but are not writtable. Since the Mac always writes to any disk that isn't write-protected the Mac will damage the disk as soon as it is placed in the Mac. You are usually better off formatting the disks on a Mac instead of on the Translator. If you are getting disk damaged messages when you use disks formatting on the Mac you either have an ST drive whose speed is way off or a problem with the Translator. First try using a speed check program to check the speed on the ST drives. It should be 297-303 RPM, 300 is perfect. I wrote a speed check program for Data Pacific that was uploaded to several of the commercial services (CIS, GEnie, Delphi), it is probably the best choice of programs to try. NOTE: There is at least one PD drive tester that gives the wrong drive RPM. After finding out what your drive speed really is try running the TRANSTST program that came with the Translator. It will tell you if the Translator can work with your drives on your ST. There should be no errors reported by TRANSTST. If there are either the Translator has a problem or it just will not work with your drives. Either way call up Data Pacific. Dan Moore AT&T Bell Labs Denver dlm@druhi.ATT.COM dlm@druwy.ATT.COM