knudsen@ihwpt.UUCP (04/02/87)
The last couple of articles helped me understand
why some of my laboriously constructed Boot disks
for Version II and Coco3 have gone bad (unbootable)
after a few days.
You may recall I was using NewDisk with a headbanger
disk drive (Head Load on Select, not Motor).
On my main system (Coco 1) only one drive, which I usually
use read-only, has head bangers.
But the single drive on my Coco3 has 'em too.
Writes to such drives with unmodified NewDisk are dangerous.
Backups are guaranteed to blow 50% of the sectors!
But now I learn that Version 2 writes your directories
when you do an innocent little CHD. No wonder disks are dying...
But ... does CHD really write the directory's date,
or just open it in update mode with the *potential* to write?
If the latter, I should't have any problems unless I really
write something to the disk.
Anyway, I've fixed my NewDisk to remove the deselect code.
But it sure was neat to watch those select LEDs ... mike k
--
Mike J Knudsen ...ihnp4!ihwpt!knudsen Bell Labs(AT&T)
>>>DRUGS are for WIMPS who can't handle SCIENCE FICTION<<<