Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com (03/27/89)
My friend has an A2000 and he is going to ditch his A2090 controller since
there is no bad block mapout and its been nothing but problems. So he is
looking for a new SCSI controller to purchase. He is thinking about the Supra
controller since we know it does have bad block mapout and is easy to setup
and is reasonable fast. However, does anyone have an opinion on another
controller that they think we should look at? Price is NOT his main
consideration. If there is a controller that is much better but more money,
I know he will go for it. Thanks for any info!
- Doug -
Doug_B_Erdely@Portal.Cup.Comejkst@cisunx.UUCP (Eric J. Kennedy) (03/29/89)
In article <16272@cup.portal.com> Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com writes: >My friend has an A2000 and he is going to ditch his A2090 controller since >there is no bad block mapout and its been nothing but problems. So he is ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^^ No. Somebody tell me this isn't true. How can it not map out bad blocks? I've only ever seen one or two disks that *didn't* have a few bad blocks. -- Eric Kennedy ejkst@cisunx.UUCP
jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup) (03/29/89)
In article <16272@cup.portal.com> Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com writes: >My friend has an A2000 and he is going to ditch his A2090 controller since >there is no bad block mapout and its been nothing but problems. So he is >looking for a new SCSI controller to purchase. Note that with a SCSI disk the DISK does the mapping, NOT the controller. Every time the disk is low-level formatted (aka preped), the SCSI disk is supposed to test itself and map out all bad blocks found. Of course this destorys all info on the drive. Some SCSI drives support the Reassign_Block command, though not all, which allows mapping out on the fly. Also, the A2090 has its own bad block mapping on top of the SCSI (since it has to be there for st506.) Note that it will not add bad blocks to it's internal list of bad blocks, and probably shouldn't, since almost all bad blocks are found on reads, and if you map it out you lose any chance of recovering the data (like when my SCSI drive overheated and started getting read errors everywhere, because the room was 85-90F.) -- Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com (03/30/89)
He has a ST-506 drive on the 2090 right now.. and sorry, but it does NOT
, I repeat NOT map out bad blocks!! At least not on the ST-506 drives. When
we first had this hunch that it was not, I posted a message to Usenet and
(not to get him into any trouble) Bruce said that the software did not
do this and he was re-writing it. This was last July. Since we have not
seen hide nor hair of new software. My friend just wants to sell his
2090.
- Doug -
Doug_B_Erdely@Portal.Cup.Comdavid@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- One of the vertebrae) (03/31/89)
2090's map out bad blocks ... at least it seems to on my machine. :-)
But then both the documentation and PREP leave a lot to be desired
so maybe it doesn't and I've just been lucky so far.
--
<- David Herron; an MMDF guy <david@ms.uky.edu>
<- ska: David le casse\*' {rutgers,uunet}!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET
<-
<- The problem with mnemonics is they mean different things to different people.darin@nova.laic.uucp (Darin Johnson) (04/01/89)
In article <16433@cup.portal.com> Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com writes: > > He has a ST-506 drive on the 2090 right now.. and sorry, but it does NOT >, I repeat NOT map out bad blocks!! At least not on the ST-506 drives. When >we first had this hunch that it was not, I posted a message to Usenet and >(not to get him into any trouble) Bruce said that the software did not >do this and he was re-writing it. This was last July. Since we have not >seen hide nor hair of new software. My friend just wants to sell his >2090. It would be a shame, since just trading your ST-506 for a SCSI disk will do the trick. ST-506's are not SCSI, and therefore have not smarts. SCSI disks are the ones that (usually) have bad block mapping. Of course, most of these don't map bad blocks on the fly, but only when you re-format them, so don't expect miracles. Considering the fact that you can't get much for a 2090 (or I would have sold mine and gotten a 2090A) you'll be losing a chunk of money just to get a slower card. Darin Johnson (leadsv!laic!darin@pyramid.pyramid.com) Can you "Spot the Looney"?
stan@teroach.UUCP (Stan Fisher) (04/04/89)
In article <16433@cup.portal.com> Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com writes: > He has a ST-506 drive on the 2090 right now.. and sorry, but it does NOT >, I repeat NOT map out bad blocks!! At least not on the ST-506 drives. When >we first had this hunch that it was not, I posted a message to Usenet and >(not to get him into any trouble) Bruce said that the software did not >do this and he was re-writing it. This was last July. Since we have not >seen hide nor hair of new software. My friend just wants to sell his >2090. > - Doug - > Doug_B_Erdely@Portal.Cup.Com EXCUSE ME?? When I prep my drive (ST-506) and prep asks me if I want to map out any bad blocks, and I say yes, and it asks for head, cylinder and BCAI (byte count after index?) and I type in 10 different lines with 3 numbers each, you mean to tell me it was just doing it for fun?? We seem to be getting as many different opinions about this topic as there are people responding. Could someone at Commodore, possibly with A2090(A) experience, tell us do it or don't it?????? If it don't, I'm real bummed! 8^( - Stan Fisher asuvax!mcdphx!teroach!stan Motorola Microcomputer Division, Tempe, Arizona - (602) 438-3228