lharris@utgpu.UUCP (04/18/87)
Hi. I recently thought I got a good deal on a Tallgrass 3135 hard disk system. It has a 35 meg drive with 40 meg tape backup. The problem: It appears to function properly at first. Directories get written, files transfer but they get garbled . Files under about 12K transfer fine. Garbled files actually only have 1 byte missing from them. On a file compare one finds the data offset by one byte (like one just vanished). Tallgrass has no explanation for this - they want to sell a $100 service manual that doesn't even contain schematics - just flowcharts for which board to replace. The interface consists of 3 boards - a small data buffer board in the PC - an analog board with the phase-locked-loops for disk and tape writing - and a digital board with ram and lots of LS244's (it also calculates a CRC for all data transfered). I have replaced the memory with no luck, reset the PLL - no luck, and I am considering replacing the IC's that make up the CRC generator. Any ideas on what could cause 1 piece of data in a stream to get lost? Any help or ideas would be very much welcomed. Tallgrass's only solution is to swap boards for over $300 - there isn't even $300 worth of components on the thing. Thanks in advance.. /leonard