bdenh@caen.engin.umich.edu (Brain J Denheyer) (01/20/89)
My hard disk has been acting very strange and I want to know waht's going on since it is indispensable hardware. At first it looked like I lost directory information on C: (I have C,D,E,F 5 Meg partitions) because I was getting garbage for some directories and things like 143 folders with random names. Ouch ! After I zapped the disk and restored everything, it a appeared I'd be okay. Lately though I've been getting an alert box telling me that drive C or drive D may be damaged and then of course that drive has zero bytes in zero things etc.. Turning the !HD! off and back on seems to cure the problem (not resetting the ST). In addition sometimes the harddisk does not initialize properly and I have to turn it on and then off again. Apparently the in use light does not come on when it's screwing up. Since my hard disk is my life I'd like to know if anybody's seen anything similar. I've had the HD for about 1 1/2 years. Thanks bunches Brian Denheyer P.S. I like my ATARI ST.
dhawk@well.UUCP (David Hawkins) (01/31/89)
I've had the same problems with my Supra 30 Meg hard disk. Everything
just disappears from the disk. I was starting to wonder if it was due
to the cold weather. We don't turn on the heat in the winter, so the
hard disk might be operating at too low a temperature.
later, david
--
David Hawkins {pacbell,hplabs,ucbvax}!well!dhawk
Bach almost persuades me to be a Christian. -- Roger Fryrona@hpdml93.HP.COM (Ron Abramson) (02/04/89)
Brain J Denheyer writes: >My hard disk has been a1ting very strange and I want to know waht's >going on since it is indispensable hardware. >At first it looked like I lost directory information on C: (I have >C,D,E,F 5 Meg partitions) because I was getting garbage for some >directories and things like 143 folders with random names. Ouch ! [ETC...] I had similar problems with my hard drive. I fixed it by moving the host adaptor (small board which converts the Atari DMA port to SCSI) away from the mech and power supply. Apparently, the host adaptor was picking up considerable noise. If you use the ICD boot software, you'll be warned of trouble as the write verify will be turned on. I strongly suggest that you obtain this until you're sure that the problem is solved. I was actually able to turn the problem on and off by moving components around. Now that my host adaptor is outside of the sheet metal, I never have a write error. I hope that this helps. Ron Abramson
bane@mimsy.UUCP (John R. Bane) (02/05/89)
In article <480016@hpdml93.HP.COM>, rona@hpdml93.HP.COM (Ron Abramson) writes: > Brain J Denheyer writes: > >My hard disk has been a1ting very strange and I want to know waht's > >going on since it is indispensable hardware. > > I had similar problems with my hard drive. I fixed it by moving the > host adaptor (small board which converts the Atari DMA port to SCSI) > away from the mech and power supply. Apparently, the host adaptor was > picking up considerable noise. > ... > Ron Abramson I had similar troubles with a BMS-Adaptek setup from Berkeley Microsystems. At the time I lived about an hour's drive from them, so they told me to bring the rig up there. After a little experimentation they discovered that it worked with the boards laying flat on the table, but not stacked and attached to the disk drive. I finally fixed it by putting a layer of copper-clad PC board in the stack between the drive and the host adaptor. At the time (about two years ago) they had only heard of one other case like mine, and never actually SEEN one until mine. -- ARPAnet: bane@mimsy.umd.edu UUCP:...umcp-cs!bane
rthurlow@van-bc.UUCP (Rob Thurlow) (02/07/89)
In article <480016@hpdml93.HP.COM> rona@hpdml93.HP.COM (Ron Abramson) writes: >I had similar problems with my hard drive. I fixed it by moving the >host adaptor (small board which converts the Atari DMA port to SCSI) >away from the mech and power supply. Apparently, the host adaptor was >picking up considerable noise. If you use the ICD boot software, you'll >be warned of trouble as the write verify will be turned on. I have another anecdote to relate about flakiness in my hard drive subsystem. I have the ICD host adaptor, an Adaptec 4000A controller, and a Vertex V170 60 Meg mechanism. This lives in an IBM PC-XT case and runs off of a 150 Watt IBM power supply. The drive works very well when cold, but when it warms up, I get the occasional retry from the write verify in the ICD hard disk driver. But the real notable thing is that I cannot write certain bits of data to the hard drive once everything is warm! The resource file for Simon Poole's DLII and the Magic Sac MAGICHD.PRG are two files that exhibit this behaviour. I don't mind the occasional retry, but trying to write these files to the hard disk WILL NOT WORK, under any circumstances. I've tried physical positioning and different 20-pin and 34-pin cables; I have not yet tried a different 50-pin connector, and I haven't yet tried cold spray. I suspect that ringing in the cables is causing troubles with a marginal part on the Adaptec controller only when it is warm. I admit I was a little annoyed when I found that the ICD driver NEVER gave up and reported an error; rebooting is not always the best way to recover from such a situation. That might be a nice change to make for version 2.3 of the driver :-) -- "There was something fishy about the butler. I think he was a Pisces, probably working for scale." - Nick Danger Robert Thurlow {uunet,ubc-cs}!van-bc!rthurlow Vancouver, BC, Canada or rthurlow@van-bc.UUCP In the heart of Kitsilano or rthurlow@wimsey.bc.ca