Re: Technique to fix bad sectors??

[Eric Jacobs <no@no.no>]

Joe Walters wrote:
> 
> Today I tried to backup my Texas.II Vol 7 disk (REAL old history), and
> found that it had suffered bit rot (a Nathan Mates saying that amuses
> me and also describes the problem).
> 
> The disk now has six sectors on different tracks that are bad
> (1529 ($5F9), 1551 ($60f), 1564 ($61C), 1566 ($61E), 1581 ($62D),
> 1594 ($634).
> 
> These are text/AppleWorks files so one or more errors probably would
> result in one or more misspellings, which I could fix with the spell
> checker if I could only read them in.
> 
> ProSel 8/16 is no help cause it can only lockout bad blocks that do not
> belong to a file. Any further input on the value in this situation is
> welcomed - I don't think there is any. I could not get Block Warden to
> read the bad sectors so it isn't helpfull in this situation.
> 
> My main hope became Copy ][ +. In the Sector Editor for 3.5" disks
> I can read the bad sectors if I use the Patched options to ignore
> errors in the checksum, etc. What I cannot figure out is how to tell
> Copy ][+ to write the sector out using computed checksums for the
> data.

Usually, if Copy II+ can read the sectors successfully, it will write
them back to disk without any errors. (Then maybe again my disks just
haven't had as bad of a case of bit-rot as yours have.) If you tell it
to write, and it still comes up with an error, you can just duplicate
the disk using sector copy (which you know will work since sector edit
can read the damaged sectors.)

-ej