Format floppy disk and marking bad sectors?

[Malakie]

Hi,

Is there an Amiga program that can actually format a floppy and mark out bad sectors? Something that would allow use of at least the good parts of a floppy disk?

Since I recently got back into the Amiga finally, I am finding that floppy disks are impossible to find. I have a dozen or so older disks, including a couple game disks I won't play that are standard format (Earl Weaver stats disk for example) but they too have a sector error thus I am unable to complete a format.

Like an HD, I am wondering if anyone knows of a format program for floppy that actually marks out the bad sectors?

While I also have a gotek drive, I need floppy disks for a few things that I need to use on another Amiga that is a stock machine and I am not altering in any manner.

Any help is appreciated!

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Malakie

Hi,

Is there an Amiga program that can actually format a floppy and mark out bad sectors? Something that would allow use of at least the good parts of a floppy disk?

Since I recently got back into the Amiga finally, I am finding that floppy disks are impossible to find. I have a dozen or so older disks, including a couple game disks I won't play that are standard format (Earl Weaver stats disk for example) but they too have a sector error thus I am unable to complete a format.

Like an HD, I am wondering if anyone knows of a format program for floppy that actually marks out the bad sectors?

While I also have a gotek drive, I need floppy disks for a few things that I need to use on another Amiga that is a stock machine and I am not altering in any manner.

Any help is appreciated!

You can't mark out bad sectors on Amiga floppies because of the way the hardware works.

You can't read just an individual sector, you need to read in the track on one side that contains 11 sectors, and then access those sectors individually from there.

Obviously the problem is, if a sector is bad, the entire track on that side of the disk is bad as it won't be able to decode the track properly for you to be able to identify the particular sector, as 1 bad sector means the checksumming will fail.

If the disk is bad in any way, its time to send it to an early grave, its only going to get worse, not better.

[mark_k]

You could try Badformat to mark tracks as bad.

Due to the way tracks are written whole tracks must be marked as bad rather than individual sectors.

Many original game diaks (which you should never write to, leave them write-protected!) are copy-protected which often appears as having one or more bad sectors.

[Malakie]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

You can't mark out bad sectors on Amiga floppies because of the way the hardware works.

You can't read just an individual sector, you need to read in the track on one side that contains 11 sectors, and then access those sectors individually from there.

Obviously the problem is, if a sector is bad, the entire track on that side of the disk is bad as it won't be able to decode the track properly for you to be able to identify the particular sector, as 1 bad sector means the checksumming will fail.

If the disk is bad in any way, its time to send it to an early grave, its only going to get worse, not better.

I realize that but as I also said, 1) I need a few disks just to move some files to another machine that is stock and 2) finding new floppies or even any used floppies that work, is near impossible.

So my only option is to try and recover a few disks with marked out bad tracks/sectors that will at least allow some basic file moving.

[Malakie]

Originally Posted by mark_k

You could try Badformat to mark tracks as bad.

Due to the way tracks are written whole tracks must be marked as bad rather than individual sectors.

Many original game diaks (which you should never write to, leave them write-protected!) are copy-protected which often appears as having one or more bad sectors.

These game disks are not protected. They are basic Amiga format, some of them I know because they are from my own Amiga company from way back...

Since I have multiple copies of a few of my original disks, I hoped to use a few for some quick file movement but I need to find a way to block bad tracks/sectors first..

And I am aware of serial port and parallel copying and such but was hoping to avoid all that hassle for what amounts to maybe 30 files I need moved in total that are relatively small.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Malakie

I realize that but as I also said, 1) I need a few disks just to move some files to another machine that is stock and 2) finding new floppies or even any used floppies that work, is near impossible.

So my only option is to try and recover a few disks with marked out bad tracks/sectors that will at least allow some basic file moving.

Wouldnt risk it, I would just pilfer some used HD disks and use them, otherwise it sounds like you have drive issues if no disks work properly

[Malakie]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Wouldnt risk it, I would just pilfer some used HD disks and use them, otherwise it sounds like you have drive issues if no disks work properly

HD's won't work.. the machine is stock and I am not changing or modifying it at all for a reason. And as I said, it for a simple transfer of some files..

It's the disks. Same problem appears on the other machines for each disk.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Malakie

HD's won't work.. the machine is stock and I am not changing or modifying it at all for a reason. And as I said, it for a simple transfer of some files..

It's the disks. Same problem appears on the other machines for each disk.

HD disks work fine, you just need to format them on the Amiga as double density.

[Malakie]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

HD disks work fine, you just need to format them on the Amiga as double density.

How? Not one of them I tried works on any of my systems and I have a box of new disks that are HD.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Malakie

How? Not one of them I tried works on any of my systems and I have a box of new disks that are HD.

Cover the HD hole and format, it's that simple

[Malakie]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Cover the HD hole and format, it's that simple

I'll figure something out...

[mark_k]

Unless you have a very late model (Escom/Amiga Technologies) machine covering the HD hole won't make a difference since the drive just doesn't have a sensor there.

How reliably an Amiga drive works with HD floppies may vary depending on the drive model and make of disk.

Badformat should do exactly what you're wanting. But I would inspect the surface of any old/bad disks first. If there are spots of mould on the surface keep it well away from your drives.

[Malakie]

Originally Posted by mark_k

Unless you have a very late model (Escom/Amiga Technologies) machine covering the HD hole won't make a difference since the drive just doesn't have a sensor there.

How reliably an Amiga drive works with HD floppies may vary depending on the drive model and make of disk.

Badformat should do exactly what you're wanting. But I would inspect the surface of any old/bad disks first. If there are spots of mould on the surface keep it well away from your drives.

Thanks.. yea the disks visually look great... but all have 1 or 2 bad tracks/sectors.. I am thinking that at some point they were all exposed to a magnet strip or something that messed them up because they also all have the error in nearly the same identical place...

I have some original Workbench 2.0 disks and am just going to copy those to a hard drive on one machine, wipe them and use them to move the files, then I can restore the original files back onto those disks again from the HD...

[mark_k]

If you go that route it would be better to create image files (ADF files) from the original disks rather than copying individual files.

But I would just suck it up and pay for a new box of DSDD disks, like this eBay listing for example.