"Sectors Found So Far:" Message

[europlus]

Hi there,

When the CFFA3000 seems to be having trouble reading from a physical disk, I hear the drive seeking or resetting or something, and often see messages saying: "Sectors Found So Far:" followed by a hex value which sometimes stays the same across multiple read attempts, sometimes it changes.

I can't seem to find any explanation online or in the FM about what this message means, whether I can trust the disk image that's created, etc., etc.

Please help! Should I be concerned? If it doesn't report that a track (or tracks) were unable to be read, does that mean it's confident of a successful read, even if it's after several apparently unsuccessful reads?

Thanks!

Sean

[leandro]

Sean,

You mean using the feature embedded in the CFFA to import a disk ?!?

Have you tried to create one image with ADTPro ?!?

Regards,

Leandro Polimeno

[europlus]

Hi Leandro,

Yes, I'm using the embedded disk imaging function.

I'm doing a batch of 80 or so disks - it doesn't happen with all disks, and I haven't had a chance to try other imaging methods. Before I move on to other methods, I want to finish what the CFFA3000 can do. I just thought I'd ask about that message because I see it reasonably frequently and I can't find information about it.

Sean

[dlyons]

Sean,

Import's handling of unreadable floppy tracks differs between firmware version 3.0 and 3.0.1, and I recommend updating to 3.0.1 and then re-trying the floppies that were reading with difficulty.

The improvements are:
-- Prompts "Keep incomplete image?" if any tracks weren't read in their entirety (3.0 always kept the image).
-- Fills any unreadable sectors with zeroes in the incomplete image.
-- Tries each track 10 times instead of 4, before each recalibrate.
-- Says "Track NN: read N of 16 sectors (xxxx)" (3.0 said "Sectors found so far: xxxx").
-- Says "Found all 16 sectors" (3.0 said "Found the remaining sectors").

So if 3.0.1 does not ask "Keep incomplete image?" at the end, that means it thinks it successfully read every sector. However, a Disk II sector only has a single byte checksum, so with an old flaky disk there is some chance of reading the wrong data and still having the checksum match. I'd be concerned about that if a track takes a long time to read successfully.

Cheers,

--Dave ("The Firmware Guy")

[europlus]

Hey Dave,

thanks for that, much appreciated. Will update to 3.0.1 when I get to the office next (where my current ][ setup is).

Hope you have a great festive season,

Sean