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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: Xanaa on June 16, 2008, 11:34:14 PM
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Hi,
I have some 3 1/2 disks that have errors on them. :-(
When I use Disk mech. it show me the bad sector.
I have back ups of the disk and they are bad as well but not in the same sectors.Question is there a way I could copy the disks and grab the good sectors to replace the bad ones? :idea:
Thanks,
Xanaa
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Floppydisks?
If so, try xcopy and copy the disk to itself...
My be just enough to get the data of the disk...
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rock the disksalv
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The disks, are they scored on the surface, with concentric circles or just spotted with mould or dust on the surface?
Quite often if you slide back the metal disk cover from the front of the floppy you can see the surface, and if you use a pencil in the underneath outer drive cut-out you can turn the disk manually to see if there is any mould or damage to the floppy disk magnetic material or it's surface.
If it is mould then the disks can usually be cleaned with some multi-surface surfactants/cleaners, like you get in the supermarkets, but you will need to dismantle the floppy disks to be able to do this. Generally this method yields good results, and you can get a disk to work fully, if the mould has not eaten/destroyed the magnetic material itself.
You can usually tell if it mould on the disk, if you cannot see any concentric circles on the surface of the magnetic material, and the floppy disks squeals or makes a lot of noise as it tries to spin in the drive.
If it is mould I can explain how best to do it, but if it concentric circles on the disk, then I wish you the best of luck because you are not that likely to get the essential data off them in a complete enough format to be able to use the data as it was written.
If the data is for games and if they are not the originals then you can usually get the disks from off the WWW, if it is data from applications then some can be obtained via TOSEC, or if not available there I have some data backups of of Amiga software, though not inexhaustable, if you need any further advice then PM me.
Hope some of this information is of use to you.
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I wonder whether you could take images of both disks (ADF/DMS) then load the images in to a hex editor? If you are able to work out where each sector starts and ends you should be able to copy the good ones over the bad ones (in the image) and then write the image back to a new floppy disk.
That is assuming the disk isn't so far gone that you can't take an image.
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moto
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I think if you used xcopy pro and copied the disk to a new disk and where the errors are use the other disk and copy just those tracks, you should have a 100% working disk!
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There is no guarantee that the same data is actually present in the "same" tracks...
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I think if you used xcopy pro and copied the disk to a new disk and where the errors are use the other disk and copy just those tracks, you should have a 100% working disk!
There is no guarantee that the same data is actually present in the "same" tracks...
True... We don't know how the backups were originally made. If it was a track/sector copy, such as an XCopy would make, though, this is very likely to work.
First, XCopyPro the original to a blank (destination) floppy. Note any failed tracks. Now, copy just those individual tracks from the backup to the destination floppy. Presto, the destination floppy should now be a totally fresh disk with 100% of the data. (Provided the Original and the Backup floppies originally contained the exact same data and layout. I've done it before and actually had very high levels of success under these conditions.)
The key thing is, even though it might work, or it might not.... It won't harm anything. For sure it is a better suggestion than copying the original disk to itself, which is typically a horrible idea, as if the read fails, you don't get a second chance.
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There was another thread on here a few months ago where someone had come up with a way to fix bad sectors. I don't remember the details...
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Weirdami was right. Search for DiskSalv v4 from David Haynie. It's the ultimate tool IMHO for fixing disks. I've saved several bad disks in the past with this tool. Top notch! :-D
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Good luck finding Disk Salv v4! I've been looking for a year!!
For this problem, good old DiskX might work well. I've get v2 - don't know if there's a new version.