robert4@garfield.UUCP (07/05/87)
Has anyone else had this problem, or does anyone know of a fix or patch (if
that's what's needed) ?
Whenever I (or a programme) access a directory for the first time after a cold
boot (after loading dos and executing autoexec.bat, etc.) my hard drive access
indicator light flashes rapidly and steadily for about 5-10 sec and then
produces the results of the dir scan. This ONLY occurs the first time after I
turn the system on OR when using a utility like PCTools (each time it checks
the dir or a path). And this only seems to happen with DOS 3.2 (I was using
2.11 before this without the problem) and only on the hard drive. I have asked
some friends (with different PCs and/or hard drives) about this and some have
and others have not had a similar experience.
My system:
Commodore PC10-II (8088 PC clone; verrrry compatible)
Lapine 20 meg hard drive (half-height, internal)
Tandy 1200 baud infernal (oops! internal) modem
SmartWatch clock/calendar ic
AGA board
2 Panasonic floppy drives
All suggestions gratefully accepted.
Rob
==========================================================================
robert4@garfield.UUCP or R. D. Pitt
robert4@garfield.MUN.CDN Dept. of English
RPITT@kean.MUN.CDN Memorial University
St. John's, Newfoundland
Canada A1C 5S7
==========================================================================nomad@orstcs.cs.ORST.EDU (07/08/87)
One problem you might be having is that PC-DOS seems to store
information internally. The first time I do a dir on my st238 (30mb)
drives it lists all the files in that dir, then spins the disk for a
while to get the remaining space. (prints the listing, but stops at
the "available" flag and spins until it counts bits I guess). After
that, it knows so it doesn't rescan at that point.
All of this is conjecture based on observed delays and in no way
reflects any other information. (In other words, it's all guess work.)
nomad@orstcs
-------------------------
LEE DAMON FidoNet: 152/201 (The Castle) - (503) 757-8841
nomad@cs.orst.edu CSnet: nomad@cs.orst.edu
"Real soon now!" UUCP : {hp-pcd,tektronix}!orstcs!nomad
"I've gone out and I don't think I'm expected back."norm@mtgzy.UUCP (07/08/87)
Sounds like what happens if I power up my AT&T 6300 if I parked the heads with the "ship" command on the previous powerdown.... Perhaps your clone parks the heads before disconnecting linepower? This would be a valuable feature, but would probably mean that the line power switch connected power to the pc through a slightly complicated relay arrangement, and would be an expense I wouldn't expect in the cheaper clones... Norm Andrews AT&T Information Systems Room MT-2C402 200 Laurel Avenue Middletown, New Jersey 07748 (201)957-5786 vax135!mtuxo!mtgzy!norm
wales@ucla-cs.UUCP (07/08/87)
In article <3774@garfield.UUCP> robert4@garfield.UUCP writes:
Whenever I (or a programme) access a directory for the first time
after a cold boot (after loading dos and executing autoexec.bat,
etc.) my hard drive access indicator light flashes rapidly and
steadily for about 5-10 sec and then produces the results of the
dir scan.
This ONLY occurs the first time after I turn the system on OR when
using a utility like PCTools (each time it checks the dir or a
path).
And this only seems to happen with DOS 3.2 (I was using 2.11 before
this without the problem) and only on the hard drive.
I see something similar on my XT clone running DOS 3.1 when I do a DIR
on my 30-Mb disk.
The first time I do a DIR after a reboot, I get a list of the files and
the number of files. The system then accesses the drive madly for a few
seconds before printing out the number of free bytes on the drive.
I assume what is happening is that the system needs to check the free
block info on the drive in order to tell how much free space there is.
After this has been done once, the data is stored somewhere in the sys-
tem, and presumably incrementally modified as files are created/deleted,
so that subsequent DIR operations don't need to compute the amount of
free space from scratch.
-- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 213-825-5683
3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1596 // USA
wales@CS.UCLA.EDU ...!(ucbvax,rutgers)!ucla-cs!wales
"Sir, there is a multilegged creature crawling on your shoulder."wtm@neoucom.UUCP (07/09/87)
Apologies if the answer is already out on the net, but I haven't seen the resonse at our site yet. A long pause upon doing the first "DIR" command on a drive is usually due to DOS scanning the FAT (file allocation table) to count the number of secotrs that are used and unused. You'll note that the pregnant pause happens just before the line at the end of the directory listing, "xx FILES nnnnnnn BYTES FREE". If you have a "BUFFERS = nn" line in your CONFIG.SYS file, the space available is cached in RAM by DOS, thus subsequent DIR connands do not require scanning the FAT. The poster also asked about PCTOOLS and NU. Both of these programs look at the fat themselves, keeping their information separate from what DOS thinks about the disk. Hope this is of use. Bill (wtm@neoucom.UUCP)
jon@amc.UUCP (07/09/87)
In article <3774@garfield.UUCP> robert4@garfield.UUCP writes: > > Whenever I (or a programme) access a directory for the first time > after a cold boot (after loading dos and executing autoexec.bat, > etc.) my hard drive access indicator light flashes rapidly and > steadily for about 5-10 sec and then produces the results of the > dir scan. > > This ONLY occurs the first time after I turn the system on OR when > using a utility like PCTools (each time it checks the dir or a > path). My system does the same thing, and after poking around I tracked it down to the BUFFERS= entry in CONFIG.SYS. It turns out that some clusters are getting buffered in memory, so that the next time you access the directory it just looks in memory. On mine, I can enter an invalid command, and the disk will whir and I will get an error message, and then if I do it again, it comes back immediately with an error message. P.S. If you really want to speed up operations (with a fast hard disk), and you can afford the memory, set your buffers to a larger number (I use 64, and have been tempted to go larger). -- Jon Mandrell, Applied Microsystems Corp., (ihnp4!uw-beaver!tikal!amc!jon) Jung vs Ze G. jrer tnl? Jbhyqa'g "Gur N Grnz" gnxr ba n jubyr qvssrerag zrnavat?
kuo@skatter.UUCP (07/10/87)
In article <3774@garfield.UUCP>, robert4@garfield.UUCP writes: > Has anyone else had this problem, or does anyone know of a fix or patch (if > that's what's needed) ? > > Whenever I (or a programme) access a directory for the first time after a cold > boot (after loading dos and executing autoexec.bat, etc.) my hard drive access > indicator light flashes rapidly and steadily for about 5-10 sec and then > produces the results of the dir scan. This ONLY occurs the first time after I > turn the system on OR when using a utility like PCTools (each time it checks > the dir or a path). And this only seems to happen with DOS 3.2 (I was using > 2.11 before this without the problem) and only on the hard drive. I have asked > some friends (with different PCs and/or hard drives) about this and some have > and others have not had a similar experience. > I think it is okay. My 20MB disk does the same after a cold boot or after access by Norton Utils etc. I think what happens is at that particular time, the FAT info is not in core, so the system is reading from the disk to see how much space is used up/free. Some programs might wipe out this part of memory so a re-read is needed. I am running PC-DOS 3.1 (8-) ... Peter/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Kuo | Bitnet (VMS) : KUO@SASK Accelerator Laboratory | (a.k.a. The Beam Warehouse) | uucp (Unix) : !alberta\ Univ. of Saskatchewan | !ihnp4 -- !sask!skatter!kuo Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | !utcsri / CANADA S7N 0W0 | (Earth) | Ma Bell : (306) 966-6059 Disclaimer: I don't know what I am saying, so don't quote me on anything! And I only speak for myself.
jl@fornax.uucp (JL) (07/13/87)
> In article <3774@garfield.UUCP> robert4@garfield.UUCP writes: > > [ Question about why the FIRST acces to a directory after a cold boot results in the hard drive being accessed continuously for about 5-10 seconds BEFORE the dir listing comes up on the screen.] > In article Jon Mandrell, Applied Microsystems Corp., (ihnp4!uw-beaver!tikal!amc!jon) > My system does the same thing, and after poking around I tracked it down > to the BUFFERS= entry in CONFIG.SYS. It turns out that some clusters are > getting buffered in memory, so that the next time you access the directory > it just looks in memory. On mine, I can enter an invalid command, and the > disk will whir and I will get an error message, and then if I do it again, > it comes back immediately with an error message. > > P.S. If you really want to speed up operations (with a fast hard disk), and > you can afford the memory, set your buffers to a larger number (I use *********************************** > 64, and have been tempted to go larger). RTFM. :-) For example, try pages 4-7 through 4-10 of the IBM PC-DOS reference manual for ver 3.20 In particular, note the suggestion above about using very large buffers. I quote the following from page 4-9 of the above cited reference. "For most data base applications, a value between 10 and 20 buffers usually provides the best results. For subdirectories, between 10 and 25 buffers usually provides desirable performance. Beyond that point, the system may appear to start RUNNING SLOWER [caps are mine]. With a very large number of buffers, it can take DOS longer to search all the buffers for a record than it would take to read the record from disk." ... "Since each additional buffer increases the resident size of DOS by 528 bytes, the amount of memory available to the application is reduced by that amount. Additional buffers may actually cause some applications to run more slowly because there is less memory available for the application to keep data. This could result in more frequent reads and writes than would otherwise be necessary." Please keep this in mind when you select a BUFFERS size. -- Jay-El