unbent@ecsvax.UUCP (Jay F. Rosenberg) (05/15/87)
I keep running across references to a mysterious problem involving
Seagate ST-238 hard disks coupled with Adaptek 2070 RLL controllers. A May
11th Infoworld story spoke of a "25 percent failure rate" and disks
"becoming unusable months after being set up to work with RLL controller
cards". Since that's precisely the combination I installed in my new clone
last December, this is getting rather disturbing.
Does anyone out there know what is going on here? How worried
should I be? What are the early symptoms? Is it better to leave the disk
running 24 hours a day (which is what I've been doing for the past 6 months)
or to shut it down each night (which sometimes produced symptoms of
reluctance from the disk upon cold reboot from zero revs, namely "General
Error Reading Disk C; Abort, Retry, Ignore?" Retry seemed to work, by the
way.)? How many months do I need to wait before I can be confident that my
configuration is healthy?
Any information appreciated. Email and I shall summarize if
appropriate. (But don't bother to remind me to keep current backups. I DO,
and I intend to go on doing so.) Thanks in advance.
JAY ROSENBERG Dept. of Philosophy UNC Chapel Hill, NC 27514
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unbent@ecsvax.UUCP unbent@ecsvax.BITNET unbent@unc.BITNET
--
JAY ROSENBERG Dept. of Philosophy UNC Chapel Hill, NC 27514
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unbent@ecsvax.UUCP unbent@ecsvax.BITNET unbent@unc.BITNET mh@killer.UUCP (Mike Hobgood) (05/17/87)
My combo went in about 30 days. The first symptoms were a distinctive clacking noise: clack-clack-clack-clack (four times). It would do this even if I was using the floppy. Low level format nor high level would work. It sounded like the heads fell off.
wfp@dasys1.UUCP (William Phillips) (05/18/87)
In article <3155@ecsvax.UUCP>, unbent@ecsvax.UUCP (Jay F. Rosenberg) writes: > > I keep running across references to a mysterious problem involving > Seagate ST-238 hard disks coupled with Adaptek 2070 RLL controllers. A May > 11th Infoworld story spoke of a "25 percent failure rate..." > ... Since that's precisely the combination I installed in my new clone > last December, this is getting rather disturbing. > ... Is it better to leave the disk > running 24 hours a day ... > or to shut it down each night (which sometimes produced symptoms of > reluctance from the disk upon cold reboot .... I have had the same configuration on my clone since January, and while I have not experienced any boot problems, I have found that I must let my system "warm up" for 10 minutes or so before doing any serious disk I/O. If I don't wait, sometimes nothing happens, but at other times (or on certain files), I get either "disk not ready" or, rarely, "data error" when I try to read. If I do wait the 10 minutes or so, everything is totally solid. I wrote a batch file that copies every file on the disk to NUL, and it runs without a hitch if I let the system "warm up" (fast, too). Running at 4.77 vs 8 Mhz seems to make no difference. Replacing the 8088 with a V20 made no difference as far as this problem goes. I have some information to the effect that ST-238's made in a certain period have been recalled, but my drive is well out of that period by several weeks. Any thoughts? -- William Phillips {allegra,philabs,cmcl2}!phri\ Big Electric Cat Public Unix {bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!wfp New York, NY, USA {philabs}!tg/
nclee@sbcs.UUCP (Nai Chi Lee) (05/19/87)
> > I keep running across references to a mysterious problem involving > > Seagate ST-238 hard disks coupled with Adaptek 2070 RLL controllers. A May > > 11th Infoworld story spoke of a "25 percent failure rate..." > > ... > I have had the same configuration on my clone since January, and while I have > not experienced any boot problems, I have found that I must let my system > "warm up" for 10 minutes or so before doing any serious disk I/O. If I don't > ... > William Phillips I also have the same configuration, and the same problem happened to me. After about one month of light usage, the drive started giving out error messages such as "CRC error" or "Sector not found" at power up, but then it worked fine after 10 minutes or so. I suspected that the problem was due to slight mis-alignment of disk heads, worsen by temperature variation. I did a low level format and the problem disappeared for a while, but came back after a few weeks. Finally, three month ago, I exchanged the whole drive/controller for another same unit. The new unit is still running well so far. (touch wood :-) CSNET: nclee@sbcs.csnet ARPA: nclee%suny-sb.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa UUCP: {allegra, hocsd, philabs, ogcvax} !sbcs!nclee "It is difficult to make something foolproof because fools are so ingenious." [Anon]
dennis@wolf.UUCP (Dennis Lou) (05/21/87)
While poking around the library the other day, I came across an article
in the March/April 1987 issue of Micro Cornucopia that described the
Seagate drive problems. I never read Micro C and am not affiliated
with it, so perhaps someone can comment on it.
--
Dennis Lou
{ihnp4 sdcsvax} !jack!wolf!dennis
"Avoid redundancy. Don't repeat yourself."