[Coco] DECB FAT question

[Willard Goosey]

>Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:31:23 -0600
>From: Roger Taylor <operator at coco3.com>

>I think that Disk BASIC checks the FAT data alone, not the directory 
>entries, to see which granules on the disk are free.

Seems to be the consensus.  I think the only programs that would have
a problem are ones that already ignore the CoCo directory and FAT.

>In fact, you can "fix" faulty disks by marking the bad sectors 
>(actually, 9 at a time, a granule), as bad or unuseable.  The file 
>storage routines will skip right over those granules when looking for 
>free ones.

Would have been nice if Microsoft had specified a "bad granule" code.
Well, the only real difference is that bad sectors marked used will
still cause problems with BACKUP.  Well, they did have to pack
everything into a small ROM.

Willard
-- 
Willard Goosey  goosey at sdc.org
Socorro, New Mexico, USA
"I've never been to Contempt!  Isn't that somewhere in New Mexico?"
   --- Yacko