[comp.sys.atari.st] External floppy problems and a Lurking Horror....

johnsonc@topaz.ucq.edu.au (Immortality is not from the long time you live but what you achieve in the time you have....) (07/31/90)

Does anyone out there have trouble when booting with an external 
floppy drive?  I'm passing this on from my father who's had the trouble.

When he boots with the external drive on and with a disk in it,
numerous things sometimes happen (if it is un-write protected):

  a) Files can be corrupt.
  b) Disks can lose EVERY file.
  c) You can try reading the directory but it gives an error (data on 
     disk may be damaged) and when you say CANCEL you get it.  But this
     only works once in a blue moon.  Other times you get a blank window
     for the directory.

We thought there might have been a virus on but our virus killers didn't
find any.  Does anyone out there know about any such thing happening????

            *      *      *     *      *      *      *

But my little question is, "Does anyone have LURKING HORROR for the ST?"

I played some of it on a friend's ST but he's moved off and sold it without
telling me (some friend).  Can anyone help with it?

Regards.

schultzd@kira.uucp (David Schultz) (07/31/90)

In article <6252@topaz.ucq.edu.au> johnsonc@topaz.ucq.edu.au (Immortality is not from the long time you live but what you achieve in the time you have....) writes:

   When he boots with the external drive on and with a disk in it,
   numerous things sometimes happen (if it is un-write protected):

     a) Files can be corrupt.
     b) Disks can lose EVERY file.
     c) You can try reading the directory but it gives an error (data on 
	disk may be damaged) and when you say CANCEL you get it.  But this
	only works once in a blue moon.  Other times you get a blank window
	for the directory.

   We thought there might have been a virus on but our virus killers didn't
   find any.  Does anyone out there know about any such thing happening????

	       *      *      *     *      *      *      *
I too had this happen when I first got my (used) ST.  As near as I
could figure, some important chips had come loose.  The computer just
forgot it had a drive in the middle of disk read.  THis did bafd
things to the disk.  I took the case off and reseated all the chips I
could.  The problem cleared up.  It has happened twice since then.
However the by using the "kill" option in the PD Vkiller program
(Version ?) I was able to get the data back.  (Don't ask me why that
worked.  I know it shouldn't.)
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~    ARMAGEDDON SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
schultzd@egr.msu.edu		| Dave Schultz, Michigan State University
schultzd@cpsin.cps.msu.edu	|        Dept. of Computer Science
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Relax!  It's only the end of the world." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~