gtchen@faline.bellcore.com (George T. Chen) (08/28/87)
Help. I have an XT clone with a 20M hard disk problem. When I first turn of the computer after leaving it off for a while (like in the morning or when I get home from work) DOS is unable to read from the harddisk. When I try booting from a floppy, I'm still unable to access my C: drive. I keep getting a "Invalid drive specification" even though I'm using 3.1 and have a lastdrive=c in my config.sys . Fdisk, when I use option 4, tells me that there's an error reading the harddisk. What I do at this point, besides cursing, is turn the machine off and back on. Eventually, I'll get to the point where fdisk can read the harddisk but DOS still won't let me do a dir c: (I'm still booting off the floppy, the harddisk won't boot yet). Again, I'll turn the machine off/on (a couple of more times). Suddenly, I can read my harddisk! Here's the catch: If I now turn the machine off/on everything works! What's going on? Could there be a problem where the harddisk actually needs the machine to be warm? Thanks in advance. George Chen
nather@ut-sally.UUCP (Ed Nather) (09/01/87)
In article <1319@faline.bellcore.com>, gtchen@faline.bellcore.com (George T. Chen) writes: > Help. I have an XT clone with a 20M hard disk problem. When I first turn > of the computer after leaving it off for a while (like in the morning or > when I get home from work) DOS is unable to read from the harddisk. When > I try booting from a floppy, I'm still unable to access my C: drive. I keep > getting a "Invalid drive specification" [...] > > What's going on? Could there be a problem where the harddisk actually > needs the machine to be warm? The same set of symptoms appeared on my XT. After a lot of flopping around which I won't describe, I removed the connectors to the hard disk and cleaned all the contacts, which looked a bit scuzzy to me. I used a rubber eraser till they appeared shiny again. When I re-connected them everything worked and has been working ever since. I don't *know* if it's the same thing, but it might be worth a try ... -- Ed Nather Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin {allegra,ihnp4}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather nather@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU
keithe@tekgvs.UUCP (09/02/87)
In article <8899@ut-sally.UUCP> nather@ut-sally.UUCP (Ed Nather) writes: >...I removed the connectors to the hard disk and cleaned >all the contacts, which looked a bit scuzzy to me. I used a rubber eraser >till they appeared shiny again. When I re-connected them everything worked >and has been working ever since. I don't *know* if it's the same thing, but >it might be worth a try ... > PLEASE remember to us a "pencil" erase and not an "ink" eraser: the gold in them thar' contacts ain't very thick and you want to make sure that all you remove is _scuz_ ! keith