05-22-2020, 09:27 AM
What exact "errors" are you referring to, the media test, or the process with HxC that you are trying?
I have found that about 5% of my brand new in the box 3.5" disks are still good. Something about the passage of time with 3.5" disks. I see errors starting around track 72 during a media test. When looking at the flux data visually using the editor/analyzer's flux display option, it's clear that there is in fact a problem because the flux data is wildly distorted. I can take the same disk and it fails formatting with a USB floppy drive plugged into my PC, so it really is a disk issue.
Any previous format won't matter. The head assembly has an erase head that sits before the actual write head and that wipes out the data before an actual write occurs.
If you can simply tap the head and pickup data that would indicate an alignment issue between the disk and the drive. This is not that uncommon, but usually far more common with 5.25" drives. If a drive is slightly out of alignment from factory spec any disk formatted using that drive will read just fine in that drive, but may not read in any other drive that is in factory spec. The only thing that shuffling the head can do really is to move the read head slightly off center of the track if the drive head stepping assembly is worn out (sloppy) and the head doesn't quite move the same each time. In reality you shouldn't be using that drive at all for archiving disks if that actually works as it will be unreliable.
91% IPA with a fiber cleaning disk is the only thing I recommend for cleaning a disk drive. You can't "scrub" the heads near well enough with just a cotton swab. I also usually have to clean the surface of 3.5" disks using a microfiber and 91% IPA. For whatever reason, 3.5" disks did not stand the test of time. I have 5.25" disks from the late 70's that were stored in horrible conditions that still read/write perfectly today, and I have boxes of brand new disks that were stored in a climate controlled environment that won't format.
Yellow means that one or more sectors were not able to be recovered.
I have found that about 5% of my brand new in the box 3.5" disks are still good. Something about the passage of time with 3.5" disks. I see errors starting around track 72 during a media test. When looking at the flux data visually using the editor/analyzer's flux display option, it's clear that there is in fact a problem because the flux data is wildly distorted. I can take the same disk and it fails formatting with a USB floppy drive plugged into my PC, so it really is a disk issue.
Any previous format won't matter. The head assembly has an erase head that sits before the actual write head and that wipes out the data before an actual write occurs.
If you can simply tap the head and pickup data that would indicate an alignment issue between the disk and the drive. This is not that uncommon, but usually far more common with 5.25" drives. If a drive is slightly out of alignment from factory spec any disk formatted using that drive will read just fine in that drive, but may not read in any other drive that is in factory spec. The only thing that shuffling the head can do really is to move the read head slightly off center of the track if the drive head stepping assembly is worn out (sloppy) and the head doesn't quite move the same each time. In reality you shouldn't be using that drive at all for archiving disks if that actually works as it will be unreliable.
91% IPA with a fiber cleaning disk is the only thing I recommend for cleaning a disk drive. You can't "scrub" the heads near well enough with just a cotton swab. I also usually have to clean the surface of 3.5" disks using a microfiber and 91% IPA. For whatever reason, 3.5" disks did not stand the test of time. I have 5.25" disks from the late 70's that were stored in horrible conditions that still read/write perfectly today, and I have boxes of brand new disks that were stored in a climate controlled environment that won't format.
Yellow means that one or more sectors were not able to be recovered.