Weirdity with my 8" drive

[Tony Duell]

> 
> 
> I've noticed something odd with my 8" disk drive.  It seems to produce a
> lot of errors on the last tracks on side 1 when using Anadisk.  Anadisk

Rmemeebr that the last tracks are physically shorter, which means the bit 
density is higher on them. So if there's anything marginal -- a worn 
head, slight misalignment, etc -- it'll show up there first.
> What does "Gap in sectors" under Anadisk mean anyway?

IIRC, it means it found, say, sectors 0, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. It never 
found a sector numbered 3. This might be right (it's perfectly possible 
to format a disk like that), but often it means the sector header was 
unreadable. 

One thing to check is if the total number of sectors is the same on all 
tracks. For most systems (that can be read by a PC controller) it will 
be, so if you get the 'Gap in Sectors' message and there's one fewer 
sector found, it's almost vertain it didn't manage to read that sector 
header.

> 
> Is this just a case of disks that are just old and wearing out or
> something weird with my drive?

If it was mine, I'd do the full set of tests on the drive, which would 
mean buying an alignment disk. And 8" alignment disks seem to be 
particularly expensive.

-tony