csrobe@ICASE.ARPA.UUCP (07/07/87)
I have had a Supra Hard Disk for about 4 months (90 day warranty, of course) and it is starting to make some unusual sounds, and do some disquieting things. The first thing I noticed was that it occassionally 'burped' during the power on sequence. Normally, I would hear a cresendo whir followed by two beeps. Then I noticed an occassional: whirrrrrrrr beep BURP beep beep but everything worked fine. Then the big-time hit, the machine had been on for several hours (4 or 5) and was quite toasty. I had micro-emacs load a file, the disk started to spin up for a read and it never stopped! It got faster and faster. I had to turn the drive off to stop it. By this time my heart was pounding and I was sweating bullets. Well, it started again, it burped again, and everything seemed ok for about 4 mins then it took off again. I let the machine sit idle for a couple of days while I moved. Then I hooked it up again, and it whirred, beeped, BURPED, and beeped some more. EVERY TIME I started it. In comes SUPRA! I called their tech support line and the guy I talked to said that a loose power cord could cause the whir-up problem and that the BURP didn't mean anything as far as diagnostics go. I was skeptical but what could I do? I tested the power cord, started the machine, and started to work. My disk is partitioned into 4 5meg logical disks, with the fifth one a Scratch disk. I decided to run the Supra Hard Disk Utility to "Map out bad sectors" on that logical disk (5). At about 2400 of the 10100 and some sectors the disk did its magical whirr. I reached to check the power cord again, but before my had was half way there the disk drive reset itself and started the power up sequence. (Whirrrrrrrr, beep, BURP, beep beep). The utility said I had a bad sector, GEMDOS said I that the data on the drive may be damaged, and that the drive needed to be connected correctly. I replied to cancel the operation, the GEM diaglog box disappeared but the utility started mapping at the next sector. The mapping completed without another hitch. I am worried and scared to use my machine. I have almost $600 invested in that disk. A *MAJOR* investment on my part, and I don't like the idea of it flaking out after only 4 months! In about a month and a half I am going to start doing research for my Master's Thesis and I can't afford to have my machine freak and my data flung into the bit-bucket. I am also not so pleased with SUPRA's response to my inquries, nor with their documentation. So i leave you with this general plea: # # ###### # ##### # # # # # # # # ###### ##### # # # # # # # # ##### # # # # # # # # ###### ###### # # Chip Roberson csrobe@icase.arpa (ARPANET) $csrobe@wmmvs.bitnet (BITNET) ...seismo!gmu90x!wmcs!csrobe (UUCP)
braner@batcomputer.UUCP (07/08/87)
[] My personal impression is that the current day hard disks are _unreliable_. As a group. Now could somebody out there arrange an Atari ST <--> Micro Bernoulli connection? (Removable, 5", 20Meg, flexible, durable cartridges!) Meanwhile, _please_ do not put any valuable data on a hard disk. Use it for work copies of programs that you already have on floppies. Put you data on two (or more) floppies and upload it to some mainframe too... - Moshe Braner