Re: Any way to salvage disks that can't write?

[BLuRry <brendan.robert@gmail.com>]

On Tuesday, March 12, 2013 11:03:14 AM UTC-5, gid...@sasktel.net wrote:
> On Tuesday, March 12, 2013 8:32:45 AM UTC-6, BLuRry wrote:
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> > This is a silly question I never would have asked ten years ago, but now that supply is limited I wonder is there a way to salvage disks (not their data per se) that are unable to write successfully?  I still have quite a few disks with no defects so I'm not necessarily stuck on this.  But I am curious just for posterity's sake if anyone has ever made unusable disks usable again (even for just temporary purposes)
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> > -B
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> Why would you risk it?  Even if it is for temporary usage, the disk would really never be reliable.  You would have to make multiple backups after every session.  And you would probably waste more time recreating what you lost than its worth.
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It's worth holding a game for 5 minutes so I can boot it up.  ;-)  Seriously, this is a very narrow use case but one that will hopefully matter to me less in a few months if I am able to make progress on RWTS hacking (only planned work, not started and no progress)

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> Having said that.  I would say "yes".  Of the multiple drives I have, the best drive that seems to read perfectly every time, is an "elite" drive that I have.  If I get an error on any of the apple drives, I would always fall back to the "elite" to really test the disk.

Totally great scenario, and I used to have an elite drive back in the day.  Well, until I plugged it in wrong and blew it up.  First magic smoke experience of my childhood.  It was a sad day.

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> I found that 99% of the time, the disk was more than likely ok.  It was usually something to do with the drive that caused the error.  Speed, alignment, heads need cleaning, etc.

Well, no I've had trouble with these disks in multiple drives.  I think they might have been zapped by electromagnetism at some point in the past.

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> Disks are quite robust and can be fairly mangled and still be readable.  My favorite disk was so warped, I had to jam it into the drive.  And it still read perfectly.  It was my favorite, because it was easily recognizable in a stack of disks due to its warped case, so it was easy to pick out as the main boot disk.

I used to have this trick with one stubborn disk where I'd open the Disk II drive door a quarter of the way and push up on the edge of the disk with my index finger slightly.  Seemed to get some disks to read better but was a total hail-mary approach to the problem.  That was in the early 90's and I have more sophisticated methods now.  :-)

> At other times, I have come across a box of disks that caused regular errors within a week or two of buying them.  I learned very quickly which brands to avoid.

That would have been a good thing to forward to my dad back in '87 before he bought a lot of "Bonus" disks.  I know what you mean, but these days the ideal supply of reliable disks is rather limited.

> So for posterity's sake, I hope you are not that curious.  If you do not trust the disks, then don't use them.

Not for anything that needs to last more than 5 minutes like I said.  I just didn't know if there was some sort of low-level format like sector markers that had to exist for a disk to work properly.  Knowing what I know about floppy emulation that's not likely the case but I figured I'd ask anyway in case anyone has ever dabbled in it.

Thanks for the feedback Rob!

-B