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[Leifern]

Hi,

I was trying to reinstall everything on my system a couple of days ago and found that most of my disks have died or were dying. They work sometimes, but not when i want them to. Anyone know how i can get a faulty, failing or "errored" disk to start working again. I have a program called DiskSalv 2. Will this do the job?


I have also bought a pack of brand new disks. None of them were formatable..!!

I have tested with a different Amiga.. Same problem, so it's not the Floppy controller!



Any ideas?
Please help! :getmad:

[leirbag28]

Give it Floppy to Floppy Resusitation (FFR) :-D

[orange]

sometimes its because of dust, try blowing in that metal 'circle' (no pun intended).
don't use that program you mentioned, use X-COPY or D-COPY instead (copy to brand new diskettes), try reading defective tracks many times; if you were trying HD diskettes, cover their HD hole and use them only as temporary solution.

(backup your diskettes with DMS to HDD, ASAP)

[Leifern]

Well, i've blown like a madman!! How will X-Copy save my disks if my diskdrive can't read'em? 1/10000 times, the amiga reads the disk.. Is this what i'll be doing? Wait for this moment?

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Leifern wrote:
I have also bought a pack of brand new disks. None of them were formatable..!!

:-?

Do you use a classic Amiga with DD diskdrive (A1000, A500, A2000, A3000, A600, A1200)? Then you need to put tape on the right hole (label side upside). And you must slide the thingy to close the left hole (so it's write enabled)

[Brian]

XCopy will try and read a disk more times to get it right and it can even "guess" at sometimes. And if you do se a bad area in the copy process you can go back and copy just that sector again to se if that helps... XCopy+ usually does the trick but a worst case scenario you'll have to do a Nibblecopy on a few sectors.

But you're not alone on this issue... personaly I made a huge work and DMS'ed like 700disks about 6 years ago just to kill that "backup" harddrive about 2 years ago. Now about 1 in 10 floppys are bad and I've started DMS everything again (though the archive a bit bigger now

[KThunder]

depending on what you are trying to copy it might be easier to find it on the net dl it. if you own the original disk it should be ok. i did that with dpaint VI, i bought it with some other stuff on ebay and the original disks didnt work so i dled it from back to the roots

[InTheSand]

@Leifern:

If you really have tonnes of Amiga disks (that can't be downloaded from BTTR or similar) and also have a PC, have you considered buying a Catweasel PCI card?

This will at least let you use a new and standard PC FDD to read your Amiga disks.

I had my own "ADF mission" quite some time ago, backing up everything that wasn't copy-protected using a variety of real Amigas and the PC-based Catweasel.

- Ali

[vic20owner]

This reminds me, anyone have a program called AmiAlign? I lost my AmiAlign disk when I moved. It's a floppy realignment utility.

[Leifern]

@InTheSand:

Yeah, well.. The problem is i'm not able to format any of my disks no matter what i do. I've tried taping a bunch of HD disks as well.. They won't format.. I've considered buying a Catweasel for my Amiga. I've heard that they are far better than the A1200 controller when it comes to disks failing..

I have all my "important disks" on DMS, i just need working disks to copy them too.. And i have none. And can't get hold of any!! Damn...

[InTheSand]

Have you tried giving your drive the isopropyl alcohol treatment?

Sounds like you have a knackered drive - HD disks should be formattable without a problem using a standard Amiga DD drive regardless of whether the disks are "taped" or not.

Recent brands I've used are:
Verbatim DataLifePlus Teflon (grey with plastic shutter)
Imation Rainbow Disks

... but all should work, at least for short term storage.

- Ali

[vic20owner]

I agree, take the cover off of the drive, and wipe the heads with a qtip and isopropyl alcohol. My drive douldn't read ANY of my disks until i did that. Now it works like new.

[mdivancic]

Also, I'd recommend getting some tuner cleaner and cleaning the disk detect switch, the write protect switch and the DD/SD detect switch (if appropriate) at the front of the drive. If these get dirty they start to stick and can give some very strange results (and let me tell you, multiple drives seem to be able to develop this problem at the same time).

Mike

[Brian]

@InTheSand

That is not true... some A1200 comes with internal floppydrives that detects the difference between DD and HD and won't work with HD floppies (if they're not taped propperly like with black electrical tape that goes on both sides that'll prevents both detection "taps" and light from penetrating the hole).

[orange]

or you could cross few wires on cable, buy new PC floppy for 6 euros. it should even handle HD diskettes (as DD) better than secondhand Amiga floppy. it will not work with x-copy (and probably some versions of DMS too) without the RDY signal (one diode needed) but there are millions of copy programs; some do not require bloody READY.

here is how to modify PC floppy cable:
1) uncross all wires (10-16, 13 stays in place)
2) cross 10-12 (11 stays in place)
3) connect wire 2 coming from motherboard with pin 34 in floppy connector
4) all done! :-)

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