Herbert is correct that the active feedback will compensate for
orientation. While I do not have any test data, my familiarity with
feedback mechanisms (in a former life) would indicate that there is
likely to bee some hysteresis and play, although it may be small. Note
also that unless there is an embedded servo signal, the feedback
mechanism is on one specific part of the drive and may be slightly off
from the rest of the platters.

I admit that my recommendations and musings are likely to be mostly
theoretical and there may not be a compelling reason to format in a
specific orientation. Nonetheless, I always try to do so - perhaps it is
the old electronics engineer in me!

Peter
_____________________
Peter Shkabara
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http://gocolumbia.org/pesh

-----Original Message-----
Peter wrote:
> The reason to do formatting with the final orientation is due to the
> slight changes in head positioning that can be caused by gravity. This

> helps insure that the head lines up with the formatting marks.
Herbert wrote:
        Do you have a source for this? I just don't see what difference
it could make. All current drives use active feedback, they seek out the
data, not position the head in a certain place and hope they are in the
right place. While a different orientation would require a different
amount of current in the voice coil to get it to the right place the
active feedback would automatically account and compensate for that.
Perhaps there is something I'm missing? TTYL

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