jmbj@whuts.UUCP (BITTMAN) (07/25/88)
I have an IBM AT clone with a WD controller and Seagate ST4051 harddisk. I never had any problems at all until 3 days ago. I booted up my computer and it said "hard disk failed." Totally flabergasted, I just took it and the disk controller out, looked them over, put them back in, and it worked!!! But not for long. After 2 or 3 power cycles, I got the same message. I fooled around with it again, and got it back up and running. I have not shut it down since. I do have a hard reset, and that doesn't seem to bother it, either does <ctl-alt-del>. I found some AT hard disk diagnostics and it fails the ECC test. (I assume that ECC is Error Correcting Code.) What my question is, does this matter? Could this be why the disk fails POST? Maybe this test was written for a different ECC, I just don't know. The disk works fine while it's up, I've edited run chkdsk, and all the other diagnostics including seek, scan, etc. Any ideas, should I just throw the old one out? Could it be the disk controller? I tried to do a low-level format while the disk was down, and received the error message "controller not ready." I'm obviously confused, so if you can offer any help.... Thanks! Jim Bittman whuts!jmbj