Are you by any chance saving AppleWorks files?  There is a known problem when
attempting to save an AppleWorks file to a 3.5" Unidisk drive when the disk in
the drive is write-protected. It ruins the disk for future use, and you can't
save to it any more.  If you ever saved to a write-protected disk in the past,
and then forgot about it and tried to save to that disk again later, the
situation you described would happen.

Since it's happening with several different disks, this may not be your
situation. But it's good to know for any UniDisk owner. It is a UniDisk
problem, not an AppleWorks problem.

Beverly Cadieux 
TEXAS II an international newsletter for users of AppleWorks(R) 5.1 




>What fixes the diskette?  A reboot or volume repair utility?

Neither of those fixes the doomed disk. However, I think the disk is still good
after the write-protected attempt. I believe you could COPY the files off to
another, clean disk, or make a diskcopy (maybe).  

However, most times when you save an AppleWorks file to a write-protected disk
in a 3.5" UniDisk, you pull the disk out, un-protect it, and put it right back
in. The second attempt to save will permanently damage the disk - without your
knowing it, or with an error message such as Mr. Hartz received. 

I'm not saying that this is the problem in this situation, but the word
"Unidisk" should put up a red flag if the program involved is AppleWorks.

This happened to me, and it happened to a business that I used to advise on
computer matters. I asked around about it, and the author of Repairworks (Gary
...?  Sorry I forgot the name) told me of the known problem with the firmware
of the white 3.5" Unidisk drive. I'm not aware of a Unidisk that isn't white
(at least, whiter than platinum or beige), so I assume all have this potential
problem.

[ BTW - if Appleworks encounters more than 50 files in a root directory, it
will give an appropriate error message. This is because when it saves, it saves
the file, then deletes the old version, so there are actually 2 versions of the
file on disk for a moment.]

Beverly Cadieux 
TEXAS II an international newsletter for users of AppleWorks(R) 5.1