jb@aablue.UUCP (John B Scalia) (11/04/89)
Hello,
I've run into a problem that's got me rather stumped, and I'd
hoped the net might be of assistance. We have a client using an Everex
STEP 386/25 with 4mb RAM. This unit is pretty well loaded up with all
kinds of goodies, like a 3-1/2" floppy along with its standard 5-1/4",
a 330mb Wren V (ESDI) drive, a Tecmar 150mb Tape drive, and 2 graphic
cards. This unit is dedicated for running AutoCad and a couple of
support programs.
Anyway, the problems we've been encountering all deal with HD
I/O. Nearly everyday, AutoCad complains about either trying to read
something off the disk or it says there's a problem on the disk and if
you want to save what you've done, do it now or lose it forever. It
will write to the disk successfully at that time as well. Please note
that the BIOS is _NOT_ complaining; we never see the wonderful "Abort,
Retry, Ignore, Fail" prompt. The complaints seem to come from Acad.
The drive also seems to have a chronic problem with lost clusters.
Although I might be mistaken, I believe this problem stems from the
other. Note, that the drive has always responded to all our testing
programs, and has never reported anything fatal other than 1 bad sector
not on the mfr's map. That occured after about 3 months of use.
So far, we have replaced the drive controller from a WD-1007-WA2
to an Adaptec 2322B, since Everex said some of WD's could act a little
flaky. In fact, they recommended changing the controller brand. And we're
now on our 3rd Wren V drive. The big question is: Am I missing something?
The only thing I can think of to do next is swap out the motherboard, but
I guess I'd like a second opinion.
E-mail if you can, I don't often get the time to read news.
Thanks (in advance)
jb@aablue
--
A A Blueprint Co., Inc. - Akron, Ohio +1 216 794-8803 voice
UUCP: {uunet!}aablue!jb (John B. Scalia)
Just a little more nonsense to clutter up the net.