Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 22:12:26 -0300 (ADT) From: "Tony Cianfaglione" To: "Rubywand" Subject: Zip click death disks... ref. file ClickOfDthFix_guiutil.zip Hi Jeff, I wrote to Mike so I am writing to you as well. I am sending you guiutil.exe (named guiutil.zzz to avoid virus filters so you will have to rename it) to repair any bad disks damaged by click death. I discovered that the Win3.1 formatting utility is 'stupid' (to put it bluntly) and doesn't realize the disks have a scrambled directory, which is what click death is; mainly track 0 can no longer be reached so the drive creates a newer track 0 further into the disk. The newer versions of the Iomega formatting utility look carefully at the disk and rejects it too soon. Even the Mac utility does the same. Guiutil.exe (for Win3.1) works great. The reason for click death is that the lube on the two tiny square rails that the head assembly travels back and forth on dries out! (Evidently, Iomega's earlier machines used better quality lube than that used in some later production runs.) When the head assembly can no longer reach track 0, the drive thinks it's there so it writes track 0 elsewhere on the disk. Later, when even that track 0 can't be found, the drive beats itself to death trying to find track 0. This is why click death disks can damage a good drive as the drives beat themselves to death trying to read track 0 on the bad disk. I've inluded a small info sheet I created to explain how I accidentally discovered the fix for click death disks. I've also successfully repaired the dries by opening them up and relubing the rails with a good lube. Good luck, Tony Repairing "Click Death" - damaged Zip Disks ------------------------------------------- by Tony Cianfaglione I've had success with repairing the directories on disks destroyed by 'click death' drives. I'd tried reformatting the disks on Win95 and 98 machines but the format utility (even long format with verify) gives up too quickly and reports the disk is either locked or damaged. Scandisk refuses to even look at the disks and reports there is something wrong with them. Using the Win3.1 guiutil.exe on an old 486, I was able to reformat the disks and they now work fine on all the various machines I've tried them on. This may work with internal drives too but I use my good external parallel drive and click on the drive icon and select format from the menu. When the disk starts to click, press eject and a message will appear that the disk has a format and would you like to continue formatting with verify. Re-inject the disk, select continue and the format/verify will run for 9 minutes and 27 seconds, successfully repairing the disk every time I've tried it this way (I've repaired 23 disks so far by this method including a couple my friend was ready to throw out as he had tried just about everything - even a Mac). Scandisk will even verify the disk is fine and I've had no further problems with any of the disks repaired in this manner. Is the older version a better program? I think it's that the Win3.1 guiutil.exe doesn't scrutinize the disks as much as the later versions do and simply does the deed, which is the best way. This method shouldn't work either but it does. Give it a try before heaving your disks. I constantly use the repaired disks and have never had a repeat failure with them. Note: There is no guarantee that every drive or disk can be repaired as described above. Some drives or disks may be too badly trashed. Updated 7 September 2005