jdp@caleb.UUCP (Jim Pritchett) (07/27/89)
Some time back my ST-506 drive started acting strange. Basically it
acted as if it had suddenly acquired several "bad blocks" on the disk. I
asked "the NET" about it, but no one answered. (At the time I thought it
was a software problem with 1.3 or something else.) Reformatting did NOT
help at all. Since I have a SCSI drive also, I have gotten by without it
for a while. However, I think that I finally figured out what the problem
was. I am posting this message in case someone else out there has a similar
problem.
Basically, I solved the problem by hooking the drive up to a friend's
AT clone (actually an A20286) disk controller and doing a low level format
of the drive. We also ran some disk tests at the same time. The drive
tested perfect! Strange? Well I took it home and reformatted (high level)
it. It now runs perfectly again.
Theory: I think that an errant program or Guru visit must have trashed
the low level formatting data on the drive. Has anyone else had this problem?
CATS: why don't we have a low level formatting program available for the
A2090? I'm not the only A2090 owner who has had to take his drive to another
computer in order to get it properly formatted. (In my case it was difficult
to find a friend who had the equipment, software, and knowledge to solve the
problem. I'm sure most dealers wouldn't have been able to help at all.) It
seems to me that this should have been provided with the A2090.
I hope that this helps someone out there.
--
Jim Pritchett
UUCP: {attctc|texbell}!letni!caleb!jdp