The Dreaded Read/Write Error and Disk Doctor - Amiga



The Dreaded Read/Write Error and Disk Doctor
Article originally published April 17th, 2016

*Video for the Amiga Read/Write Error
*Next article
*Previous article
*Alphabetical list of writings

Imagine you’re playing your favorite game on the Amiga. You’ve been at it for an hour and you’ve just triggered a cut scene which requests that you insert disk 3. You eagerly oblige and await the change of scenery. A sound tingles your senses and an entire array of emotions jolts through your body. You’ve heard that sound before… You know what the Amiga is about to say even before it does…


Your disk has a read/write error. The floppy drives sound let you know this two seconds before the system told you. The Amiga floppy drive always had a unique sound. It’s the reason why I don’t seek out alternatives to using it other than the occasional game that can be installed on a hard drive. I want some games to run off a floppy disk because that drive’s sound beats any computer ever made. But the floppy drive is not all joy… There is a sound that can bring your mood from 100 to 0 in less than a second. That sound is the read/write error sound, and it still haunts me.

^The Game Civilization Puts Up A Read/Write Error

Basically a read/write error means that the Amiga was unable to read or write to the disk. It seems to go back and attempt to read/write again, which is where this unique sound comes from I imagine. The reason this sound invokes so much emotion and pain is because anyone that heard it knows that disk is dead. If you’re lucky the error will only come up when attempting to read a certain file, thus you still have access to certain areas of the disk like your saves. It seems more often than not the Amiga simply made the disk off limits to you. All of your progress is stuck on that disk, perhaps nothing wrong with it, but you can’t access it.

^Not A DOS Disk Equals Forget About Seeing Anything On That Disk

In retrospect I’m sure the cause of most of these errors was a dirty disk drive. I implore you all to keep that drive healthy. Buy a floppy drive cleaner and download a program that will make the floppy go through all the tracks to clean the heads. I threw out half of my original games around 2000 because they simply didn’t work… Or so I thought. Upon fixing up my Amiga several years ago I found several games I was sure were dead still worked. Keep those drives clean!

But cleaning won’t always work. Sometimes the disk is truly dead. Is there anything we can do for it? Commodore themselves had a solution for you with the Workbench utility known as Disk Doctor.


Running Disk Doctor from a CLI/Shell would attempt to repair the corrupt areas of your disk. It would go track by track looking for these errors while reporting the information to you.


Upon finishing with the disk it would “replace” the files that had been on the disk. Rather than replace anything I kind of think it simply told the Amiga it was allowed to read them again. Before running disk doctor you might get the error upon inserting the disk into the drive, meaning there was simply no way to read anything of the disk. After running disk doctor we could now (with any luck) be able to see the files that are on the disk and copy them over to a good disk.

^Disk Doctor Finishes Successfully And Shows The Files Saved



^Using Disk Master I Copied The Files To Another Drive

I said with any luck because Disk Doctor was not the greatest utility in terms of batting percentage. I would later hear rumors that something was wrong with Disk Doctor from the moment Commodore put it on Workbench. They ended up getting rid of the program with version 2.0 of Workbench. Of 4 disks I tried using Disk Doctor on, only one of them allowed me to retrieve any data from it. On the plus side, that one disk contained saves my father made from back in the day. Information which previously was lost and now perhaps I’ll be able to have some fun with that.

There are now better utilities to deal with read/write errors, but this was a look down memory lane. To this day whenever I hear the Amiga’s floppy drive make that noise I instantly perk up and hold my breath. It is a primal fear that is forever with me. I should note this write up was for nostalgic reasons and I do not endorse the use of Disk Doctor to fix your disks. There are many other utilities available which perform much better. Try DiskSalv or another utility as Disk Doctor is just not good enough to use for your precious files. I may one day do a complete guide with the proper programs to use, this was just to look back.

To hear the sound and see me using DIsk Doctor please check out my companion video on this subject here.

"The Disk Doctor....call him when your discs are dying......but he'll only save them about 25% of the time...because he's not very good at his job." :) – YouTuber Brian Davis in reply to my video.

*Next article
*Previous article
*Alphabetical list of writings

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Amiga 8 Color Workbench 1.3 Icons - Written Guide and Collection

Image
8 Color Icons Amiga Workbench 1.3 Guide (Can be used in WB 2+) *UPDATE* *Unfortunately due to a false flag on this article as being spam, I've limited the amount of links, downloads can be found at the end* "Old Blue". My affectionate pet name for the original color choices from Amiga Workbench up to the official version 1.3 (as well as early builds of the unreleased 1.4). Having grown up with an Amiga 500 using Kickstart/Workbench 1.2, I've always felt quite at home with its simple but effective four color Workbench look. Blue was the first color, labeled as such from the computer's perspective, but more importantly adhering to your mind as the color you'll see the most, the background color. Rounding out the four color classic look was white, black, and orange. Some claim disdain for the look, though it was carefully chosen as a setup that could look good on both a computer monitor as well as a television. I always adored it, it's like coming...
Read more

Microsoft Word 5.5 And 6.0 In-depth DOS Review With Pics

Image
Word 5.5 and 6.0 Microsoft, 1990, 1993 MS-DOS $450 *My video review for Word 5.5/6.0 *Next article *Previous article *Alphabetical list of writings *This review entirely written using Word 5.5/6.0 for DOS A new apple tastes sweet, rots at home (A history)             1983 would see the humble beginnings of a word processor that proved quite unpopular for the longest time. Microsoft Word started out on the Xenix and MS-DOS operating systems. It would be touted as a "what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG)" word processor, although it was not. From what I can gather, Microsoft was willing to make this claim simply because the ASCII environment they used allowed for bold and italic text changes to be seen on screen. This was not a true indication of what would be seen when printed, nor did it offer variable fonts and sizes. A tiny little white lie told to disparage the most popular text based word proc...
Read more

Installing An Amiga 500 GVP Hard Drive

Image
My video guide for installing an Amiga hard drive My video guide on installing Amiga games to a hard drive My written article concerning the death of my Amiga hard drive My video concerning the death of my Amiga hard drive Music for the Basic Demo *Next article *Previous article *Alphabetical list of writings I've often heard that the reason people don't cover a certain game released on the Amiga is because it is simpler for them to use DOS. I scratch my head and can't help but think that none of them have actually used DOS. There are a great many games that if not outright better on the Amiga, are more often than not deserving of coverage from all manner of people who show off these games online. Nothing is simpler in DOS. I imagine this false idea is put in their head based on buying or stealing games which often come from GOG, which pretty much only offers DOS games. These games often times come with all the correct settings in order for the game to ...
Read more

Amiga 500 NTSC/PAL Toggle Switch - Written Guide With Pics

Image
Amiga 500 NTSC/PAL Toggle Switch Guide *My NTSC/PAL Switch Video Guide *Next article *Previous article *Alphabetical list of writings Why would anyone want to switch between PAL and NTSC video modes on an Amiga? After all, weren't all the best games for this platform made in Europe? I mean, American's should just out right chuck their computer into the trash and acquire one from overseas, correct? Well the answer to the last two questions is a resounding no, actually. As far as I'm concerned, it at least depends upon your point of view, and is certainly not as clear cut as some people online would lead you to believe. I full heartily believe that the best Amiga games were made in America, but unfortunately most people simply do not have any clue what is actually an American Amiga game, or what makes for a game that is best experienced in NTSC mode. ^Left, PAL; Stretched fake wide screen, not proportionally correct. Right, NTSC; As designed Have you ev...
Read more