csrobe@nh.UUCP (Chip Roberson) (11/09/87)
Hard Hard-Disk times have struck me again. Ode to my Supra 20meg.
It seems that I am having a subset of my original problems (for those
of you that remember the first round). Anyway, I would like to ask
the net if anyone has any ideas. Here goes...
First symptom --
Sometimes it takes approximately 25 to 30 seconds for the harddisk to
start its spin-up after the power switch is turned on. Normally, the
disk starts to spin up after 2 or 3 seconds. This started about three
weeks ago.
Second sympton --
When trying to read a file (the latest case was flash.prg from
d:\bin\flash) i get the "Data on disk in drive d: may be corrupted...."
dialog box. (i just reformated my disk and before the reformat, i
saw this message several times on drive e:). I could click on retry
and the file would finish reading. This time i was able to recreate
the problem -- all I had to do was try to load flash from anywhere, from
either shell - Gulam or GEM. I tried reseting the machine via the reset
button, but the problem didn't go away. The more the error occurred
the more retries it took to read the file. I finally stopped at 5
retries. Once i powered off my ST (i never powered off my Supra)
the problem disappeared. Now, i don't know where it will appear next.
My harddisk is partitioned into 4 5meg partitions (C: - F:) -- so far
C: over 3 megs free, D: has somewhere around 3 megs, E: has almost
5 megs, and F: has all 5 megs. I have installed the forty folder fix
foldrxxx.prg as foldr100.prg and after boot-up and loading accessories,
I have over 640K of RAM left.
All along I have suspected my harddisk, but now I'm not sure since
powering off my ST made the problem (at least the recurring one) go
away.
Flash-back: (for those unfamiliar with my old problem) I had a heat
problem that caused my machine to just wind down and the busy light
would come on as it did today. This would happen whether I was doing
anything or not, whether it was connected to a machine or not. It
also occurred more often when the weather was warm. (NB: today was
a nice warm day too -- 80 degrees, the warmest it has been in a while.
I also had the most wind-downs that i have had since getting the drive
back about 3 months ago.) If it was the heat, then why did powering
down my ST make the problem go away?
Please, can anyone give me some educated guesses as to where the problem
is and how i can fix it? has anyone experience this problem before?
thanks,
-chip
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Chip Roberson ARPANET: csrobe@icase.arpa
1105 London Company Way BITNET: $csrobe@wmmvs.bitnet
Williamsburg, VA 23185 UUCP: ...!uunet!pyrdc!gmu90x!wmcs!csrobe
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"Life is like a fan -- get ahead and its a breeze;
get behind and it sucks!" -anonexodus@uop.EDU (Freddy Kreuger) (11/10/87)
I had a very similar problem with my floppy drive a while back. From
changing monitors too often without fully powering down both the computer
and either monitor, I fried my DMA chip plus part of the floppy controller.
If I remember right, it costed about $400 dollars. But the symptoms were
the same as yours... the dialog boxes and all.
G. Onufer
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