Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:38442 comp.sys.amiga.tech:6683
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!apple!well!aleks
From: aleks@well.UUCP (Brian J. Witt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Format Hard Disk
Summary: AmigaDOS is the complainer
Keywords: Bad blocks, format, AmigaDOS
Message-ID: <13119@well.UUCP>
Date: 13 Aug 89 18:04:26 GMT
References: <262@pacengr.UUCP>
Reply-To: aleks@well.UUCP (Brian J. Witt)
Organization: APE OOS (Amiga Posix Exec - Object Oriented System)
Lines: 33

In article <262@pacengr.UUCP> tlbaltad@pacengr.UUCP (Tim Baltad) writes:
>I'm pretty sure this has been asked before, but I can't remember the
>answer. Does anyone know of a format utility for hard drives that
>will map out bad sectors? We had a freak thunder/lightning stormi
>here in not-so-sunny CA and I am getting a R/W error on the HD.
>
>Thanks for any help.
>Tim



Freak thunder in sunny CA... yeah, the rain was the best part...
I had a crash on my hard disk during a rather bad time DEVCON.
I recovered, and reformatted.  Many of "bad sectors" that caused
"R/W errors" went away.  After searching the disk and noting the
bad checksums in the blocks (dir and file), I've come to the 
conclusion that:

      AmigaDOS sez R/W error if *it's checksum is bad!!!!

Since the checksum is there, I assume it's used.  I haven't looked
at the DOS code, so I'm not sure, but...  Just back up the whole
disk, reformat, and restore!  Performance should increase (as
files get straightened out) and disk errors should disappear.
If you're using a SCSI device, the device should map
out bad sectors if a format command reaches the hard-disk.
If the format command doesn't reach the hard disk, force it!
(If you have a micro-forge, I may be able to help a little)

--- "You can accept money from the KGB and not
     necessarily be committing espionage."
                -- Attorney Joesph DiGenova (in Flex Bloch case)
--- brian witt