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From: info-mac@uw-beaver
Newsgroups: fa.info-mac
Subject: Re: Disk Erasure Problem
Message-ID: <284@uw-beaver>
Date: Fri, 21-Dec-84 20:38:59 EST
Article-I.D.: uw-beave.284
Posted: Fri Dec 21 20:38:59 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Dec-84 00:33:39 EST
Sender: daemon@uw-beaver
Organization: U of Washington Computer Science
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From: Rob Gurwitz 

Just an update on my earlier question about trashed disks on the Mac.
I believe that the cause of my problems was injudicious use of the
programmer's reset switch to reboot the Mac while a disk was in the
drive.  This corroborates a number of messages that have appeared on
info-mac warning about use of the switch and trashing disks in both
the internal and external drives.

It seems like the only really safe policy to follow is to only use
the switch when there is no disk in the drive or when things seem
to be completely wedged (looping program with no disk activity).
Hitting reset during reboot, or any other time the disk is spinning,
is liable to cause bad sectors to be written on the disk, which could
lead to some very unpredictable results when reading off the disk.
We confirmed this by reading one of these disks so trashed and finding
bad sector headers.

I've recently cleaned up my act by being careful with the switch and have
had no more disk headaches.

So be warned.  That's probably why the switch does not come pre-installed.
On the other hand, it would be nice if Apple made the possible dangers
more explicit in its documentation.  They seem to take the attitude that
all doc should be pitched to the lowest common denominator of machine
literacy.  That's fine, but imparting info like this for those of us who
like to think we know more would be a big help.

Rob Gurwitz