Hi I had a similar problem on my Olivetti M20 to get it formatted. I had to write all zero's to the first two cylinders to get it to work, otherwise it assumed that any data there must be bad sector data. Once I got it formatted, it had a relatively good test for bad sectors. The bad sector information was easy to understand and if I'd have needed to add any that the manufacture listed, it would have been easy. My drive had no manufacture listed bad sectors but did show some from the test. These were all the same sector on succesive cyclinders of the same head. I suspect it may have been shipping damage. If the platters counter rotate, even slightly, the heads cut into the surface :( It would be great if people would always run a park program on disk before shipping, even on drives like the st251 that are not suppose to need it. I did have to write some assembly code for the Z8000 to get things working. I had other issues as well but that was just getting a controller, not designed for the M20, to work with the M20. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Find a local pizza place, music store, museum and more?then map the best route! http://local.live.com?FORM=MGA001