joachim@orfeo.radig.de (Joachim Riedel) (03/17/91)
rose@galtee.cs.wisc.edu (Scott M. Rose) writes: >Ok; so I've bought a copy of Coherent. Arrives in the mail the other >day, and I'm all excited about installing it. > >Crack out an old hard drive to run it under; (ST4038), and discard said >drive after multiple failures. > >Install a spare ST251 drive, verify that it's working properly under DOS, >do an entire disk scan for defects, etc. > >Attempt to install Coherent; create a coherent partition spanning the >entire drive, and ask to save said partition to disk. After which point, I tried a lot of different controllers and hard disks but never had that problems. The only problem I had was that Coherent seems to be unable to use a low level formatted hard disks without using DOS-FDISK before. If you used a low level formatted disk without fdisk, try it with fdisk. If you used fdisk then I have no answer for your problem, maybe you should try another controller. Joachim (joachim@jrix.radig.de)
kym@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (R. Kym Horsell) (03/18/91)
In article <1991Mar17.111556.20319@orfeo.radig.de> joachim@orfeo.radig.de (Joachim Riedel) writes: >rose@galtee.cs.wisc.edu (Scott M. Rose) writes: >>Ok; so I've bought a copy of Coherent. Arrives in the mail the other >>day, and I'm all excited about installing it. [tried to install but didn't work] >I tried a lot of different controllers and hard disks but never had that >problems. The only problem I had was that Coherent seems to be unable to >use a low level formatted hard disks without using DOS-FDISK before. >If you used a low level formatted disk without fdisk, try it with fdisk. >If you used fdisk then I have no answer for your problem, maybe you >should try another controller. A problem that I came across was a `user-defined disk type' in the cmos; on the 386 I was using Coherent couldn't handle it. Changed to nearest `regular' code and it came up -- pity it didn't know about 1/2 the disk tracks! -kym
lark@greylock.tivoli.com (Lar Kaufman) (03/19/91)
In article <1991Mar17.111556.20319@orfeo.radig.de>, joachim@orfeo.radig.de (Joachim Riedel) writes: > rose@galtee.cs.wisc.edu (Scott M. Rose) writes: > >Ok; so I've bought a copy of Coherent. Arrives in the mail the other > >day, and I'm all excited about installing it. > >Crack out an old hard drive to run it under; (ST4038), and discard said > >drive after multiple failures. I did this, too. Discarded a pair of ancient ATASI boat anchors... > >Install a spare ST251 drive, verify that it's working properly under DOS, > >do an entire disk scan for defects, etc. I got an ST151 and resurrected an old ST225... > >Attempt to install Coherent; create a coherent partition spanning the > >entire drive, and ask to save said partition to disk. After which point, > I tried a lot of different controllers and hard disks but never had that > problems. The only problem I had was that Coherent seems to be unable to > use a low level formatted hard disks without using DOS-FDISK before. > If you used a low level formatted disk without fdisk, try it with fdisk. > If you used fdisk then I have no answer for your problem, maybe you > should try another controller. I had hell with this, and still am. Spent a lot of money on bad solutions, too. The advice about the controller is very good. I never, never got Coherent 3.0 to install. I had problems with the ATASI drives to the point that I discarded them - was having problems even in DOS... I got Seagate's version of the Disk Manager software with the ST151, and used that... another mistake, or at least a red herring. MWC told me that Coherent 3.0 couldn't handle DM-controlled disk partitions. MWC kindly offered me a free upgrade to Coherent 3.1, which was supposed to be able to deal with Disk Manager formats and partitions. Before I received my new Coherent 3.1, my HD controller unmistakably failed. Probably was bad all along. I got a new WD 1:1 disk controller and formatted using Disk Manager in manual mode - just did the low-level formats with DM - and partitioned the disks with FDISK. Did high-level formats with DOS 3.3 FORMAT program. Installed Coherent 3.1 successfully, except I couldn't see the cursor. This led to a botched edit of a critical file and I couldn't successfully load Coherent again. MWC said that the lost cursor was probably a problem with the DFI VGA card, so I got a new super-VGA card for my primary machine and swapped its old VGA card into my Coherent engine. I tried to load Coherent, but now I cannot complete successful unpacking of files. On disks 2 and 4 of my 3.1 masters, the HD bails out at track 68. Well, the floppy drive was old, too... I cleaned the read/write heads with isopropyl alcohol, but that didn't help. I got a new diskette drive and tried to load Coherent again using it. Now I *still* can't load Coherent, only disks 2 and 4 bail out on track 51. Just for the heck of it, I try disk 3, which unpacked correctly with the old diskette drive; it failed. Well, this is becoming a long story and a different set of problems, but Joachim's advice is good: suspect the controller. However, I wish the installation program were more robust. Instead of kicking you out without completing the installation, it should continue to the next file (after a couple of retrys?). Then, when all that is possible has been installed, the installation completes with a warning and a list of the files that didn't get unpacked... Every retry is quite time consuming, as all your work has to get redone for each attempt. Worse, something that you successfully retrieved in a previous attempt can get wiped out on a subsequent effort to install. So. Now I either have bad diskettes (tracks not aligned properly?) or Coherent's bad-track mapping isn't doing the task on my hard disks. Or, just possibly, the floppy control portion of my new disk controller is bad - although it works fine with DOS. I ran diagnostics, so I know my system RAM is OK... Lar Kaufman I would feel more optimistic about a bright future (voice) 512-794-9070 for man if he spent less time proving that he can (fax) 512-794-0623 outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness lark@tivoli.com and respecting her seniority. - E.B. White
joachim@orfeo.radig.de (Joachim Riedel) (03/21/91)
lark@greylock.tivoli.com (Lar Kaufman) writes: >MWC kindly offered me a free upgrade to Coherent 3.1, which was supposed to >be able to deal with Disk Manager formats and partitions. Before I received >my new Coherent 3.1, my HD controller unmistakably failed. Probably was bad >all along. >I got a new WD 1:1 disk controller and formatted using Disk Manager in manual >mode - just did the low-level formats with DM - and partitioned the disks >with FDISK. Did high-level formats with DOS 3.3 FORMAT program. Installed >Coherent 3.1 successfully, except I couldn't see the cursor. This led to a >MWC said that the lost cursor was probably a problem with the DFI VGA card, so >I got a new super-VGA card for my primary machine and swapped its old VGA It's the same problem you do have with ATI EGA-WONDER, the cursor blinks somewhere but never there where you want to write. >Coherent's bad-track mapping isn't doing the task on my hard disks. Or, >just possibly, the floppy control portion of my new disk controller is I was crazy enough to buy two sets of COherent, one 5 1/4 and one 3 1/2 and never had problems with diskette read errors. The only problem I ever had with Coherent (except "100 years" ago with Version 2.3.43) was that I was unable to create a partition larger than 48 MB on my RODIME 5130, but only /dev/at0b. So I created the large partition on /dev/at0c. Hope you all will get the working hardware Joachim (joachim@jrix.radig.de)