Next message: Brian Durant: "Re(2): [WinMac] Mac floppies on IBM Aptiva."
On Sat, 27 May 2000, Brian Durant wrote:
> Hi again,
>
> Can anyone tell me why I can't get Mac floppies or DOS floppies to work
> on an IBM Aptiva, when I have DataViz MacOpener and/or MacDrive 98
> installed? Regardless of whether I have formatted in DOS or Mac on the
> IBM, when I replace it in the Aptiva after the floppy being used on my
> Mac (PB 1400)? I can do a DOS dir for a DOS floppy, the file is found and
> then all of a sudden, I get the message that the floppy is unreadable
> "Abort, Fail, Retry". In Win 98 SE (UK) I never get access to the disk,
> but am told that it is unreadable because of (sector 0) being unavailable
> or non-existant. Any help is deeply appreciated.
This crops up, especially with old or well-used floppy drives.
Sounds like one of the drives is messed up physically, out of alignment or
something. Do you have trouble reading the PC disks on the Mac? Is this a
problem only after you've written to the disc with the Mac?
(I don't think the Autostart worm will mangle floppies like that, though
it might, check your system for viruses just to be sure...OTOH, many DOS
viruses work down low level on floppies, stuff like moving the boot
sectors and suchlike, and the Mac may just be ignoring it and overwriting
the wrong bits of the disk...check the Aptiva for viruses too. But, to be
truthful, every time a user has come to me with this problem it's either
been a really old or dying floppy disk or an out of alignment or dying
floppy drive.)
If so, then likely the floppy in the 1400 will need replacing (I don't
know if they're repairable or not...I do know that PC floppy drives arent
worth it, since a new one is about $25 or so.)
See if you can read disks from the Aptiva on other Windows PCs or Macs,
same for disks from the Mac. That should help track down which drive is
the problem one.
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group
Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs
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: Sat May 27 2000 - 17:32:37 PDT