brunk@wheaton.UUCP (Rob Brunk) (07/03/90)
A few weeks ago my Atari SH204 hard drive started bombing and now I am unsure
about what to do to fix it. Here is a brief history of what happened and the
solutions I used:
-brought my hard drive (heads parked) to a friend's house to connect with
his hard drive. He had a FA/ST 80Mb drive. We never got them to work and
that was the first time I saw my drive act up. The busy light would stay on
all the time once the computer was switched on, and it would not respond.
-took my drive back to my dorm room and reconnected it to my 1040STf. The
same problem occurred again. I played with the cables a little and finally
got it to boot normally. I use Atari's auto-booting software v3.0.
-I then copied some files from floppy to HD and soon found out that the
filesystem on that partition had been corrupted. I then used Simon
Poole's DL II optimiser/checker which seemed to really screw things up.
I then tried TuneUp! which couldn't fix the errors either. Both complained
that there were discrepancies between FAT #1 and FAT #2.
-after completely reformatting the hard drive (and losing about a month of
work) and restoring what I had backed up, I thought I had everything under
control until a week later the same thing happened again.
-I then ran a program that measures disk rpm's and found that my drive
varies as much 20 rpm's when consecutive tests are taken. I am not sure of
the reliability of that program but I became worried that it was correct.
If I listen very carefully, I can hear a high-pitched squeal that seems to
fluctuate around a little when I turn my HD on.
Has anyone ever experienced similar problems? Someone did tell me that it
might need a good cleaning since it has been in dorm rooms for 2 years now. If
that is true, is it worth getting it cleaned or should I just spend my money on
a new drive. This drive is about 2.5 years old and I have never had any
problems like this before.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much,
Rob
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Rob Brunk UUCP: ...!{spl1,obdient}!wheaton!brunk
Wheaton College "But I never claimed to be sane!"
---------------------------------------------- MA Bell: (708) 260-3823 ---------csbrod@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Claus Brod ) (07/04/90)
brunk@wheaton.UUCP (Rob Brunk) writes: > -brought my hard drive (heads parked) to a friend's house to connect with > his hard drive. He had a FA/ST 80Mb drive. We never got them to work and > that was the first time I saw my drive act up. The busy light would stay on > all the time once the computer was switched on, and it would not respond. So the host adaptor crashed for some reason. > -I then ran a program that measures disk rpm's and found that my drive > varies as much 20 rpm's when consecutive tests are taken. I am not sure of > the reliability of that program but I became worried that it was correct. > If I listen very carefully, I can hear a high-pitched squeal that seems to > fluctuate around a little when I turn my HD on. What's the program's name? I don't think the difference of 20 rpms should bother you; it's most probably the program's fault. Try the program with other drives, and you'll see. >Has anyone ever experienced similar problems? Someone did tell me that it >might need a good cleaning since it has been in dorm rooms for 2 years now. If >that is true, is it worth getting it cleaned or should I just spend my money on >a new drive. This drive is about 2.5 years old and I have never had any >problems like this before. What do you want to get cleaned in a hard disk? The disk drive itself is sealed and will never come back to life if you'd try to clean it. To summarize, you should do some additional tests on your hard drive. What kind of ST do you own? STEs like to trash your hard disk data sometimes, and the MegaSTs with those IMP chips installed have other problems concerning DMA transfers, especially over long cables, or if there are more than two drives connected to the DMA bus. Check your cables. Try one from a friend. Try to get your hands on some low- level check program for your SH204. (I have written one and would like to send it to you via snail mail if you send me a disk. At the moment, I can't post it, sorry.) >Thank you very much, > Rob Good luck! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Claus Brod, Am Felsenkeller 2, Things. Take. Time. D-8772 Marktheidenfeld, West Germany (Piet Hein) csbrod@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de ----------------------------------------------------------------------