Formatting a floppy disk?

[carvedeye]

Hi all i am having problems with formatting my 880k floppys, they are brand new disks but whenever i format them under workbench i get errors saying it cant read cylinders so i ran x-copy pro and im able to format them under that just curious to know if anyone has had similiar problems?

[Iggy]

And you're using double density, not high density, disks?

[carvedeye]

And you're using double density, not high density, disks?

yes im using double density

[paul1981]

Hi all i am having problems with formatting my 880k floppys, they are brand new disks but whenever i format them under workbench i get errors saying it cant read cylinders so i ran x-copy pro and im able to format them under that just curious to know if anyone has had similiar problems?

I've come across some disks that fail on particular cylinders, but if you do repeat formats (two or three or more times) you'll find it'll probably format. I don't use X-COPY, but if a disk doesn't format under Workbench's format tool (after a few attempts) then there's definitely something wrong with the disk or diskdrive, and I'd be cautious about trusting your data on such disks.

[Nearly-Right]

Have you tried using Super Duper 3 - Disk copying utility, and it's more Workbench friendly, and you can see the disk sectors as they are either checked, or formatted, and you can just format or copy specific sectors on the floppy disk. The archive file is here: SuperDuper-3.0.lha - http://ftp://uk.aminet.net/../pub/aminet/disk/misc/SuperDuper-3.0.lha

[nickoteen]

On which drive ? I have the exact same issue when using drives higher then df1. Ppl say it must be the weak Amiga psu. Donno.

[carvedeye]

its df0: and my amiga is towered with an AT power supply

[Erol]

Hi all i am having problems with formatting my 880k floppys, they are brand new disks but whenever i format them under workbench i get errors saying it cant read cylinders so i ran x-copy pro and im able to format them under that just curious to know if anyone has had similiar problems?

I had the same issue,  it was dirty floppy drive heads and cheap floppy disks.
Get another batch of floppy disks just incase and a floppy drive head cleaner.

Read this post its useful for beginners.

http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/floppy1.html

[smerf]

Hi all i am having problems with formatting my 880k floppys, they are brand new disks but whenever i format them under workbench i get errors saying it cant read cylinders so i ran x-copy pro and im able to format them under that just curious to know if anyone has had similiar problems?

Hi,

@carvedeye,

Having the same problem myself, but I am finding out that the magnetic media, on my old disks is starting to crumble after 30 - 35 years.
I also found out that on my A500 drives if you look at the heads under a magnifying glass that the face is about worn out, we can thank some of the old software developers with their copy protection in zipping the heads across the disks for this.

Only advice I can give is try formatting more than once, if your using high density disks, with one of the two holes covered your old disk drive may not have the power anymore to format it. During the past three months since pulling my disks out of the spare room, I have thrown over 800 disks out due to magnetic media crumble (after taking disks apart, have noticed flaking on the media disk itself.

Yes,

Old age affects everything, even me.

smerf

[smerf]

its df0: and my amiga is towered with an AT power supply

Hi,

If you are using an AT power supply, is it hooked up from a floppy disk hook up to the power on your Amiga. I have had the problem when I made my own supply in believing that the power plug was enough, but after about a month of playing with my tower I found that I had to use the main power plug of the AT supply to power the back connector, and then the rest of the plugs that powered the hard drive and floppies to power the you guessed it the hard drives and floppies.

Why?

I don't know, it was just the way it worked on my build, but I think it has something to do with amperage pull, but can't prove it.

BTW my AT power supply I made myself, and with using the plugs as intended by the AT supply mfg. it all worked great, now my other rant about Amiga Technologies disk drives

THEY SUCK!!!

Made the mod on my Amiga 1200 and used an old drive from a old burned up A500 and yes they do burn up after 25 years, can you say SMOKE CHECK WITH FLAMES.

smerf

[Nearly-Right]

There are 3 articles in Amiga Future magazine in issues 87 to 89, that explain how to literally clean your floppy disks with 'ECover' multi-surface surfactant - it's a process that you have to be careful not to get the fluid on the adhesive pad between the magnetic media and the metal centre shim/hub that attaches the magnetic media to the hub.

This method is very successful at cleaning a floppy disk, and either recovering data that appears initially to be lost or damaged, but once cleaned the disk reads as it was when it was virtually new.

At least that's what I've found.

The magazines on Amiga Future are free to read up to issue 85, so if you wait a few months I'm sure you'll be able to read those articles for free, or of course you could possibly get a back-issue from Amiga Future, if they've not all sold out.