PHILIP@VTVM1.BITNET (Fred Senese) (01/03/89)
After a few months of fairly trouble-free operation I am having trouble with my hard drive. 1) The drive won't spin up consistently. When it is stuck I can get it to spin up by tweaking the spindle on the bottom of the drive with a screwdriver. 2) The drive will run for several hours or days but eventually gives lots of read-write errors (and executables on the drive aren't recognized as object modules.) A file that is corrupt one day is OK the next. The Find Bad Blocks command in MDFixer reports different positions and numbers of bad blocks every time it is run. I can on occasion find only 4 bad blocks on the last few cylinders of the disk (exactly what I found before the drive got sick) but at other times I get around 200 bad blocks. The drive fails at different times in the startup-sequence. My configuration: A1000 w/2M Starboard II, Stardrive, attached to an ST157N in a Wetex case & power supply with a heavily shielded cable. I haven't done the PAL fix. I am running KS/WB 1.3. I've tried reseating the Starboard II and the cables. It doesn't help (altho ugh moving the 50->25 pin cable from the drive to the DB25 connector in the Wetex case seems to help temporarily (the drive will run for hours before I get another read-write error). So possibly 2) is a faulty connection inside the cable? Does anyone know where I can get a replacement for this cable? Should I have the drive replaced? (It's still under warranty-I think). Any advice you can offer will be greatly appreciated.
king@oetl.UUCP (Steve King) (01/04/89)
In article <8901022054.AA08155@jade.berkeley.edu> PHILIP@VTVM1.BITNET (Fred Senese) writes: >After a few months of fairly trouble-free operation I am having >trouble with my hard drive. > 2) The drive will run for several hours or days but eventually gives >lots of read-write errors (and executables on the drive aren't recognized >as object modules.) A file that is corrupt one day is OK the next. I too have been having trouble with my hard drive and WB1.3. Twice now the disk has crashed. My system: Amiga 1000 Pal Jr. with ST506 DMA cntlr. 1.0 M RAM Seagate ST251-1 40M drive /DH0: FFS, 20K Stack, LCyl 0, HCyl 818 WB1.3 Pal Jr. came with a low level disk test program (plus sketchy doc). At least I can block out the crashes. System worked fast & well under 1.2. I first backed up hd with MRbackup, then configured for 1.3. After restoring files DPaint crashed when trying to load hi-res files from hd. With the help of my boss got bad blocks mapped and then went through whole process again. This time Deluxe Music Cons. Set crashed heavily. And here is the wierd part, I got a requester for soundscape when I tried to open DMCS from the Icon. I also got a partial window for soundscape. Now I have never had trouble with DMCS before and Soundscape has *never* been mounted on the 40M hd(although it was on the previous 20M ST225 I have). It is as though the FFS is finding things long ago deleted and not buggy in 1.2. It makes me think I may load all application programs from masters and only save data files, then backup for the future. Thoughts anyone? Problem 2> NEWSHELL NEWCON:100/100/200/100/SJKSHELL fails in startup. I made L:Shell-Seg resident and mounted NEWCON: But the /200 option fails. If I make width /100 it comes up fine???!! P.S. I am not the Stephen J. King previously seen on these stations. But if his middle name is Juel then how am I two places at once? -- ******************************************************************************* | Stephen J. King (No, I'm not the author, but have you seen | | my dog Cujo??? ) | | ..!leadsv!oetl!king LMSC SCF "High in the Hills" |
jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup) (01/05/89)
In article <407@oetl1.oetl.UUCP> king@oetl.UUCP (Steve King) writes: >In article <8901022054.AA08155@jade.berkeley.edu> PHILIP@VTVM1.BITNET (Fred Senese) writes: >>After a few months of fairly trouble-free operation I am having >>trouble with my hard drive. >> 2) The drive will run for several hours or days but eventually gives >>lots of read-write errors (and executables on the drive aren't recognized >>as object modules.) A file that is corrupt one day is OK the next. One possibility is heat. The drive may be fine initially, but after heavy use or a long time on may overheat. Or the drive may be failing. Or it may have trouble completing seeks. > Amiga 1000 > Pal Jr. with ST506 DMA cntlr. 1.0 M RAM > Seagate ST251-1 40M drive /DH0: FFS, 20K Stack, LCyl 0, > HCyl 818 > WB1.3 > >Pal Jr. came with a low level disk test program (plus sketchy doc). At least >I can block out the crashes. System worked fast & well under 1.2. I first >backed up hd with MRbackup, then configured for 1.3. First, I'd recommend trying the latest A2090 driver (34.4) which has been posted to many places, I think including here. The Pal hardware is essentially the same as the 2090. Double check your mountlist, especially stack and dostype. You could try a maxtransfer of 512 (the _old_ driver that came with the pal may not like large transfers.) -- Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
jdow@gryphon.COM (J. Dow) (01/05/89)
In article <8901022054.AA08155@jade.berkeley.edu> PHILIP@VTVM1.BITNET (Fred Senese) writes: >After a few months of fairly trouble-free operation I am having > > I've tried reseating the Starboard II and the cables. It doesn't help (altho >ugh moving the 50->25 pin cable from the drive to the DB25 connector in the >Wetex case seems to help temporarily (the drive will run for hours before I get >another read-write error). So possibly 2) is a faulty connection inside >the cable? Does anyone know where I can get a replacement for this cable? >Should I have the drive replaced? (It's still under warranty-I think). > >Any advice you can offer will be greatly appreciated. Gentle application of contact cleaner on the pins on the drive might help. Other than that all I can suggest is getting a new drive cable. This may be a real bummer to track down, too. It could even be a poorly soldered connection on the drive itself... Good luck! -- Sometimes a bird in the hand leaves a sticky deposit. Perhaps it were best it remain there in the bush with the other one. {@_@} jdow@bix (where else?) Sometimes the dragon wins. Sometimes jdow@gryphon.CTS.COM the knight. Does the fair maiden ever {backbone}!gryphon!jdow win? Surely both the knight and dragon stink. Maybe the maiden should suicide? Better yet - she should get an Amiga and quit playing with dragons and knights.