Article View: comp.sys.mac
Article #8646Re: Need help for a sick floppy disk
From: JEFFREY A. HAMMAN
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 1989 00:53
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 1989 00:53
87 lines
4567 bytes
4567 bytes
In article <874@pmafire.UUCP>, geoff@pmafire.UUCP (Geoff Allen) says:
>
>The other day, I was working on a HyperCard stack which I was keeping on
>a floppy. When I quit HyperCard, I got a System Error (don't recall the
>number) and restarted. I didn't reinsert the floppy at that time.
>
>Well, last night I went to work on my stack. When I inserted the
>floppy disk, the Finder greeted me with a dialog box stating that the
>disk needed "minor repairs" and asking me if I wanted it to repair the
>disk. If I cancelled, I was informed that the disk was unreadable and
>the disk was ejected. If I said to repair the disk, the mac churned for
>a while and reported back that the disk was unable to be repaired.
>
>
>MacTools brings up a window for the disk. No files appear in the
>window. But MacTools *is* able to tell me that the disk has 360K used
>and 440K available (or whatever the actual numbers are).
>
I have had this problem in the past. It says the files
are there by the room that it says is taken up. Try the
product "1st Aid HFS" by 1st Aid Software in Boston. You
can only order this through the company though. I spoke
with the company owner at MacWorld/Boston/89 and complemented
her on a very well made & thought out product. It definately
does what it is supposed to do..recover files off of floppy
disks. It works on Hard Disks also...but I tend to use
Symantec Utilities. The cost is $99.00 (but pays for itself)
and can be ordered at:
1st AID SOFTWARE, Inc.
42 Radnor Road
Boston, MA 02135
1-800-THE-FIXR
>"Verify Disk" using MacTools gives me several errors, all with an ID of
>-72.
>
I have always taken this to mean in laymans terms
"physical damage". The manual makes reference to
a somewhat technical explaination, but I have found
that you should never use these disks again. I have
formatted them succesfully, but they never verify
as OK afterward.
>If I examine the disk using the "View Edit" command, it appears that the
>files are still there.
>
>It seems at some time or another, a message flashed by that the Desktop
>file was corrupted or missing or something.
>Now for the question: Is there any hope for this disk? At least one of
>the files represents a bit of work I was doing. (I do have another
>copy, but it's outdated). Any and all help would certainly be
>appreciated.
>
>Thanks,
>Geoff
>
>--
>Geoff Allen \ WINCO doesn't believe in Macs,
>{uunet|bigtex}!pmafire!geoff \ so of course these are my views.
>ucdavis!egg-id!pmafire!geoff \
You may be in luck if the file in question is not
stored on a bad sector and only the directory information
is damaged. You can copy a file over and it will "zero
out" bad sectors if it happens to be on any bad ones, but
recovery isn't too good for database files of any kind.
You are usually going to do better with word processing
files as you can extract the text. 1st Aid HFS has always
done a good job for me on a tremendous amount of floppy disks,
and I am not saying that cause I have any stock in the company,
No affiliation.
If you are looking for a no-cost way of recovering this file,
I have not found a way with the particular symptoms that you
have just descibed. Copying the disk over and working off of
the copy may give you some relief, but I doubt it as I have
only gotten copies that show zero files but disk space taken
up. Find a persom with 1st Aid HFS and get him to do it for
you.....I know I always hate people giving me the solution that
upgrading or buying something new will take care of everything.
Jeffrey A. Hamman
Microcomputer Systems Consultant
Coordinator, Student Support
The Pennsylvania State University
Technical Details
Message-ID:
<89334.195301JAH4@PSUVM.BITNET>Path:
arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!psuvax1!psuvm!jah4References:
<874@pmafire.UUCP>Show Full Headers
Complete Article Headers
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!psuvax1!psuvm!jah4 From: JAH4@PSUVM.BITNET (JEFFREY A. HAMMAN) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Need help for a sick floppy disk Message-ID: <89334.195301JAH4@PSUVM.BITNET> Date: 1 Dec 89 00:53:01 GMT References: <874@pmafire.UUCP> Organization: Penn State University Lines: 87