[comp.sys.att] Sick Hard Drive Controller?

mayerar@pyuxe (A Mayer) (07/21/88)

HELP!! PLEASE.

A couple of months ago the 20M drive on my ATT 7300 stopped
working.  I just installed a Seagate ST-251-1 last night.
I ran the format from the diagnostic disk and all went well.
Then the Bad Block check ran, Pass 1 found about 8 or 9 bad blocks.
Pass 2 found about 5 more bad blocks then crapped out.  Now I cant
even reformat the drive.  This was a brand new drive, could the
problem be that the controller has gone bad?
Following are the various error messages I received.

Hard drive restore failed           <<-----This happened on retry
        ** ERROR **
Test:    Hard disk test (drive 0)
Subtest: Surface Test
Pass: 1
Error: Winchester: Can't Recal: Responce=FF

Hard drive restore failed           <<-----trying to format again
Formatting cylender 0
        ** ERROR **
Test:    Hard disk test (drive 0)
Subtest: Format.
Error: Winchester: Error during disk format: Responce=ff

Hard drive restore failed           <<-----runing processor test
        ** ERROR **
Test:    Page protection tests
Subtest: DMA to invalid page test
pass: 4
Error: Can't Recal hard drive, test is aborted.

I would be grateful for any help!
			Thank you in advance,
				Andy Mayer

		Andrew J. Mayer
		BELLCORE

{ariel,burl,clyde,floyd,gamma,harpo,ihnp4,mhuxl,rutgers}!pyuxe!mayerar

tom@lakesys.UUCP (Tom Baas) (07/24/88)

I just want to say that I also changed to a SEAGATE st 251-1 the other
night.

It was an interesting experience.  After backing up the whole system
and very carefully removing the old drive & replacing it with the new
one I decided to go to bed & wait till morning before the BIG TEST.
(It was 2:00 am & I figured that before doing anything rash I should
be fresh when turning it on.)

After about an hour of very restless sleep I decided I could'nt wait
till morning.

I put the plug in, Turned the power on......nothing  :-(  
I proceeded to take the machine apart again & found that I had gotten
the inside plug wire caught between the inside of the case & the outside.
The wire casing had been frayed & the bare wire was touching the metal case.

I taped up the exposed wire & closed up again.  ' put the plug in,
Turned the power on......YEAHHHHHH!!!!!     :-)

I know that this doesn't answer your question.   ... Have you
considered the power supply as the ultimate culprit of your problems?
When I first got my 7300 it immediatly failed the Hard drive test.
I got my drive replaced under warrenty.  But then other things went
wrong.  I convinced AT&T that it was the power supply that was
causing my new set of problems.  They then replaced the power supply
under warrenty.  Since then the machine has been fine.

I do have a question for anyone who might be able to help me.
My SEAGATE ST251-1 seems to make a grinding noise.  The grinding
doesn't sound bad.  But it almost sounds like the bearings are bad.
The drive runs great (other than the sound)  
Is this sound normal?