In a message dated 2/1/02 9:25:09 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > >> The other thing is, perhaps, the boot blocks on the floppy are damaged. >> Face it, most of the floppies we have sitting around are quite old and >> many of them have seen a great deal of use. As are the floppy drives. I've >> got a drive in my PowerComputing that I think I may have to replace because >> I can't get it to successfully format a floppy and it has problems writing >> to floppies I format on my 7600.
I've seen so many opinions on this thread, I'll throw in my two bits. Good floppies regularly go bad just sitting around. My money's on Don's bad floppy disk, bad boot blocks or bad media. The floppy drive is more likely still OK unless it is kicking out every disk put into it. Since the other floppies don't have a system and the computer itself (is/is not) booting?, there's no way to tell for sure. Floppies formatted in one computer may not work in another due to slightly different rotational speeds or alignments between floppy drives. That does not mean the FD itself is bad. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Yes I loaded only the three unstuffed elements: a system (correct >icon) a disk first aid and a driver setup lite onto a new floppy, ejected >it, shut down, unplugged the mouse, inserted the floppy, started up andthe >2300 brought up the plain floppy image and fussed for a while before >locking up, saying "error 41". It is possible, and even quite common, to get part way into a FD boot and then get a disk error. Then subsequent ejects will result in "disk cannot be read" type messages--also quite common. The floppy is best tested in another floppy drive. Meanwhile, blow out the floppy drive with compressed air (at your local garage if necessary, but watch out for fine oil/water). Could even be a dirty head. The best way will be to hook up the 2300 in SCSI mode to another SCSI port computer, Powerbook or desktop, or put an external SCSI HD on the 2300. Run diagnostics to repair a presumably corrupted disk directory. BTW Norton (and occasionally) DFA will repair floppies or determine that they are terminal with bad media. >Afterwards, I restarted normally and when I >tried to load the same floppy I got a "sorry mac couldn't read this disk" >message. So not only is the machine refusing to start on a floppy, it's >wrecking the floppy. Huh? / Donald McCaig FDs often corrupt floppies (which may be already on the way out), then work perfectly on the next one. I recently lost my Emergency floppy (in a very similar way) and had to make four more from new floppies just to be safe. Now I'd like to take a minute to discuss emergency repair procedures and WHY I did this. Any Powerbook HD, even partitioned, may start to boot on its primary startup system and then hang up on the Smilin'Mac without being able to go further. Without a question mark, bootup will not seek another bootable partition on its own leaving you helpless. In this particular case, the PC card slot on 2400s is also useless. So, on my own emergency disks I use: --Disk First Aid 8.6.1--first line repair --Mt. Everything 155--allows recalcitrant SCSI drives to mount --Startup Disk--allows switchover to other bootable partitions, external SCSI or PC card --System 8.x You can just shoehorn all of this into a 1.4 mb floppy. In truth I consider both 8.6 and 9.x very fragile in terms of corruptibility. I've had to revive drives that no utility like Disk Warrior 2.1, NDD 6.03 or TTP 3.05 could bring back. I'm wondering about other listers' experiences or opinions? That starts me (reluctantly) thinking about OSX migration, but the OSX computers are all too big! Sidney Ho ---------- Duo/2400 List, The friendliest place on the Net! A listserv for users and fans of Mac subportables. FAQ at <http://www.themacintoshguy.com/lists/DuoListFAQ.shtml> Be sure to visit Mac2400! <http://www.sineware.com/mac2400> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Need help from a real person? Try. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ---------- Dr. Bott | 10/100 Ethernet for your 2400 is finally here! MPC-100 | <http://www.drbott.com/prod/mpc100.html> RoadTools $30 PodiumPad available at Apple retail stores, $20 Traveler CoolPad at Staples. Both in white for iBooks at <http://roadtools.com> Midwest Mac Parts ][ <http://www.midwestmac.com> After-market parts for Macs. ][ 888-356-1104 ][ MacResQ Specials: LaCie SCSI CDR From $99! PowerBook 3400/200 Only $879! Norton AntiVirus 6 Only $19! We Stock PARTS! <http://www.macresq.com>
