oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (David Phillip Oster) (12/20/88)
I just got PC Tools Deluxe for the Macintosh from Central Point Software.
I've been having some trouble lately with floppies going bad, that is
unreadable sectors that lead to repeatedly skipped files while
copying with Finder.
PC Tools reads and fixes sectors that are unreadable to normal programs.
Unfortunately, the process is much more complex than it should be, because
the inidividual programs and tools that make up PC Tools are not well
integrated.
Here is what you have to do to fix an unreadable floppy:
1.) Use the "MacTools" command "Verify disk".
2.) for each bad sector it reports, you must record on a piece of paper
the block number that was bad and the error code.
3.) using a table printed in the back of the manual, turn each block
number into a <track, side, sector> triplet
4.) Use the "Fast Disk Copy" command "Track Editor"
5.) Read the track in with the command "Read Specific Track"
6.) use the analyze track command
7.) use the inspect track command
8.) use the go to sector command
9.) if the error code was "bad data checksum" then click in the data of
the track, Otherwise, click in the address part of the track.
10.) use the fix-up checksum command
11.) use the write track command
repeat steps 8 through 10 for each bad sector on the track.
repeat steps 4..11 for each track with bad sectors
It would be a joy and a relief to have a program with the command:
"Fix Floppy", that just did all the above automatically.
What does SUM do?
--- David Phillip Oster --"When we replace the mouse with a pen,
Arpa: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu --3 button mouse fans will need saxophone
Uucp: {uwvax,decvax}!ucbvax!oster%dewey.soe.berkeley.edu --lessons." - Gasee