maschler@sonia.math.ucla.edu (07/27/90)
Some time ago I posted here a question concerning the following erratic behavior of my Compaq SLT 286: Quite often, I would not be able to read diskettes -- even those formatted and written into by this computer, but a few hours later, or a few days later, the diskette would be read normally. (Sometimes nothing would help...) I received several replies, but none actually explained this strange behavior. Recently, Brian Aslakson suggested that the condition has to do with temperature variability, and suggested that I should always format, read and write into my diskettes when the computer is warm.m Here is the scientific explanation that Brian added: "....Second, heat generated can warm and therefore expand floppy disks in the internal drive. If a file is written to the disk in this condition--say on a hot summer afternoon after your machine has been on for several hours--it can disappear the next morning when you turn your machine on. The disk drive will be searching for a track that moved a little during the night as the disk cooled. (If this happens to you, the file can most likely be recovered by letting the machine--and therefore the disk-- warm up for a few hours and then trying to reread it.)" --From "Fans, pro and con", Chapter 7 (Miscellaneous hardware), p. 277, "The Macintosh Bible" 2nd ed., Naiman et al. (the above section attributed to Naiman, Coleman, and Swain) Brian Aslakson aslakson@cs.umn.edu