fixing out of phase disks

[z***@zip.com]

My power supply recently failed but for the week previous there was no
indication that it wasn't outputting the proper power levels. The
internal ide zip drive, not giving any indication that it was suffering
from the lower power, continued to read and write to my 100mb disks;
reading fine but click occasionally when writing.

When I discoverd the bad power supply and replaced it, my disks no longer
read or are even acknowledged in the internal or external zip drives. The
data is corrupt, they won't format and are now sitting in a box awaiting a
fix of some sort. Other disks not used during this time read and write
fine in both drives.

Is there a program or a utility that can repair out of phase recorded
disks (recorded when the drive wasn't receiving the required power level
to properly record a disk)?

Thanks

[Rick]

Post by z***@zip.com
My power supply recently failed but for the week previous there was no
indication that it wasn't outputting the proper power levels. The
internal ide zip drive, not giving any indication that it was suffering
from the lower power, continued to read and write to my 100mb disks;
reading fine but click occasionally when writing.
When I discoverd the bad power supply and replaced it, my disks no longer
read or are even acknowledged in the internal or external zip drives. The
data is corrupt, they won't format and are now sitting in a box awaiting a
fix of some sort. Other disks not used during this time read and write
fine in both drives.
Is there a program or a utility that can repair out of phase recorded
disks (recorded when the drive wasn't receiving the required power level
to properly record a disk)?
Thanks

Why do you think the disks were recorded "out of phase?" Technically
that's non sensical, if not impossible.

The more likely possibilities that could have happened if the power
supply was flaky and you already heard the drive clicking while in
use: The heads crashing into the media surface, physically trashing
the disks in the process. Or the drive writing to the servo tracks
or mis writing the proprietary "z tracks" - neither of which is
recoverable in an "at home" sitaution. (Only a factory format
machine could "fix" either of those situations.) If you don't need
the data on the disks and repeated formats fail, kiss them goodbye.
If you need to get the data off them a professional data recovery
service is in order.

[ANDY]

why do my zip disks click into unusability after continued/extended use??

I've gotten in the habit of copying/creating a networking zip disk which
contains my dialer, netscape 4.08 and telnet and ftp programs... I use
such a disk for about 0-15 months as the clicks/clicking slowly
increase until the disk is unusable... my latest such "main" disk now
reports it's drive letter "drive doesn't exist" even when I re-insert it
after having established/used my/a new "main" disk (:

any help appreciated,

Andy

Post by Rick

Post by z***@zip.com
My power supply recently failed but for the week previous there was no
indication that it wasn't outputting the proper power levels. The
internal ide zip drive, not giving any indication that it was suffering
from the lower power, continued to read and write to my 100mb disks;
reading fine but click occasionally when writing.
When I discoverd the bad power supply and replaced it, my disks no longer
read or are even acknowledged in the internal or external zip drives. The
data is corrupt, they won't format and are now sitting in a box awaiting a
fix of some sort. Other disks not used during this time read and write
fine in both drives.
Is there a program or a utility that can repair out of phase recorded
disks (recorded when the drive wasn't receiving the required power level
to properly record a disk)?
Thanks

Why do you think the disks were recorded "out of phase?" Technically
that's non sensical, if not impossible.

below: is this why my zip disks click? a faulty power supply?

Post by Rick
The more likely possibilities that could have happened if the power
supply was flaky and you already heard the drive clicking while in
use: The heads crashing into the media surface, physically trashing
the disks in the process. Or the drive writing to the servo tracks
or mis writing the proprietary "z tracks" - neither of which is
recoverable in an "at home" sitaution. (Only a factory format
machine could "fix" either of those situations.) If you don't need
the data on the disks and repeated formats fail, kiss them goodbye.
If you need to get the data off them a professional data recovery
service is in order.

[z***@zip.com]

Post by Rick
Why do you think the disks were recorded "out of phase?" Technically
that's non sensical, if not impossible.
The more likely possibilities that could have happened if the power
supply was flaky and you already heard the drive clicking while in
use: The heads crashing into the media surface, physically trashing
the disks in the process. Or the drive writing to the servo tracks
or mis writing the proprietary "z tracks" - neither of which is
recoverable in an "at home" sitaution. (Only a factory format
machine could "fix" either of those situations.) If you don't need
the data on the disks and repeated formats fail, kiss them goodbye.
If you need to get the data off them a professional data recovery
service is in order.

I was afraid it might be physical damage so I guess they're done.

What I meant by 'out of phase' recording (for lack of a better term) is a
throwback to the days on my old Commodore 64 when you could change the RPM
speed of the disk drives from 300RPM down to 280RPM and write your stuff
like that. Only another detuned 1541 drive could read them. Regular
speed drives couldn't. Some game houses did copy protection in that way
by causing the drives to slow down via software programming. Disk copiers
would fail to copy the program correctly due to the speed change necessary
to continue the game.

I thought there might be a utility to either low-level format or slow a
zip drive down to see if it could read or format the disks. An attempted
format on a couple of the disks reported 'format complete but unable to
write BOOT' and then it would say 'format failed'.