Mac floppy disk verifier program?

[hjalfi]

I'm looking for a tool which will do a full surface scan of an 800kB GCR floppy and tell me if all the sectors are readable. Disk Repair doesn't do this --- it just checks the filesystem. DiskCopy 4.2 does fail when reading the disk, but it just says 'Error -72' with no other information; I need a list of track, side and sector of the bad sectors. Does anyone know of such a thing?

Context: I have a way to create 800kB GCR disks on a PC floppy drive (with a little extra hardware), and it is _almost_ but not quite working...

[IIO]

norton disk doctor or techtool? but i must say i have never tried that with floppies back in the days.

[hjalfi]

Oh, I never knew Disk Doctor was a thing on Macs. I'll check it out.

However, the problem I was having turned out to be a PEBKAC issue --- I'd forgotten to merge in a fix I'd done in a different directory. Oops.

So the good news is that I can make bootable 800kB floppies with PC floppy drives!

[Mat]

I have a way to create 800kB GCR disks on a PC floppy drive (with a little extra hardware),
(…)
So the good news is that I can make bootable 800kB floppies with PC floppy drives!

Interresting! What are you doing, if you like tell us more?

it just says 'Error -72' with no other information;

error -72 is: "badDCksum: bad data mark checksum" but you already found out yourselve for sure, didn't you?

I need a list of track, side and sector of the bad sectors. Does anyone know of such a thing?

I've never heard about such a utility. Usually all Mac tools are for simple data-rescue like directory rebuilding or similar. I never saw any hardware information like tracks, sectors, etc.

The first try is always with Apples "Disk First Aid".
Usually I swear on Disk Warrior 2.1.1, but I am not sure if it handles Floppys as well? Does anyone know?
For Floppys MicroMats TechToolPro 2.5.5 shall be the best one.

BTW Alsoft and MicroMat are still in business, and I am quite sure they still sell Mac OS 9 software if needed.

[IIO]

Oh, I never knew Disk Doctor was a thing on Macs. I'll check it out.

it was called "norton disk destroyer" since it can cause more corruption on a HD than actually fixing things if you allow it to "repair" your disk and then for example have a power failure or a system chrash.

however, for a quick check of medium and files it is quite useful (not so for the catalog and tree)

[GaryN]

So the good news is that I can make bootable 800kB floppies with PC floppy drives!

So…… Is this you?

http://cowlark.com/2021-01-05-mac-800k-discs

[DieHard]

So the good news is that I can make bootable 800kB floppies with PC floppy drives!

So…… Is this you?

http://cowlark.com/2021-01-05-mac-800k-discs

Yeah, that's him... I just read about "Writing 800kB Mac disks with FluxEngine"
http://cowlark.com/2021-01-05-mac-800k-discs/

OK... a few things to note... we are in 2021 and very few things shock me anymore, but this is amazing !

Dear David,

You are indeed a hero to many !  Legacy mac users and Lawyers with old word processors will praise your name

I was always led to believe the 800K floppy drives were possible with the "variable speed" magic of apple and that there was a physical difference to the drive.  I am guessing, that the "FluxEngine" can send this information and changes in speed to a PC floppy drive and that all works and creates an 800K floppy (from a labeled 720K diskette).  This is a game changer for many that have precious archives of floppy diskettes and have watched their legacy mac hardware die... then they go on ebay and see crap like this $289 for a floppy drive
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-800K-Drive-Mechanism-800K-P-N-661-0345-New-Old-Stock/313165271127?hash=item48ea1ad057:g:5I0AAOSwz-FfIbsn

Now they can image their collection, this is like back to the future with the "FluxCapacitor"  Yeah 2021 !