[comp.sys.apple] Disk Strangeness...

chaosboss@pro-lep.cts.com (Circuit Breaker) (11/10/89)

When I use certain programs (mostly SHRConvert & Sound Studio) and try to load
a file, I get to the dialog box and hit tab for next disk.  The first time I
do that, it reads my ROMdisk <battery-backed up RAM> just fine.  But when I
insert a new disk in the drive and hit tab again, sometimes I get the
directory from the disk that *was* in the drive.  If I eject the second disk
manually, no problem, but if I hit tab to go back to the ROMdisk, somehow the
old directory gets written to the second disk, thus I lose whatever files
there were on the second disk.

My system consists has a Unidisk 3.5, and 2.25 Meg of RAM w/RAMKeeper.  I have
768k dedicated to a ROMDisk and use it for the boot drive (10 second boot)

Anybody else had this happen to them?  I play it reall safe these days when
using SHRConvert and Sound Studio.

BTW:  After the first time this happened, I write-protected ALL my disks
(isn't paranoia great?)  but that didn't help at all.  It actually wrote to a
write protected disk!

<wants HD so he can quit worrying about disk swapping problems>

sigh,
cb
_____

UUCP: crash!pro-lep!chaosboss
ARPA: crash!pro-lep!chaosboss@nosc.mil
INET: chaosboss@pro-lep.cts.com

mattd@Apple.COM (Matt Deatherage) (11/13/89)

In article <8911121802.AA24627@trout.nosc.mil> chaosboss@pro-lep.cts.com (Circuit Breaker) writes:
>My system consists has a Unidisk 3.5, and 2.25 Meg of RAM w/RAMKeeper.  I have
>768k dedicated to a ROMDisk and use it for the boot drive (10 second boot)
>
>Anybody else had this happen to them?  I play it reall safe these days when
>using SHRConvert and Sound Studio.
>
>BTW:  After the first time this happened, I write-protected ALL my disks
>(isn't paranoia great?)  but that didn't help at all.  It actually wrote to a
>write protected disk!
>
>UUCP: crash!pro-lep!chaosboss
>ARPA: crash!pro-lep!chaosboss@nosc.mil
>INET: chaosboss@pro-lep.cts.com

Sorry, but it didn't write to a write-protected disk unless your hardware is
broken.  What could have happened, though, is that the disk cache got corrupted
and reads from the drive erroneously read bad cache blocks.  If this were the
case, then dropping into ProDOS 8 or just rebooting should magically "fix" the
disk.  But what you describe isn't literally possible with correctly-working
hardware.

BTW, I have UniDisk 3.5 drives at home (exclusively) and have seen *none* of
the problems like this that are often posted to this newsgroup.  May I suggest
that those with problems like this check two things:

1)  They really have UniDisk 3.5 drives (they're usually white, and the manual
eject hole is below the eject button, and they're made by Apple) and not some
other drive (I've known people who thought their Central Point drives were
"UniDisk 3.5" because that's what some program told them.)

2)  If using a IIgs, make sure the UniDisk 3.5 Driver is both installed and
activated in the */System/Drivers folder.  Some people liked to deactivate it
under 4.0 because they didn't like the noise, and these symptoms are exactly
the kinds of things which might result (the drive not noticing switched disks).


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