karl@sugar.UUCP (Karl Lehenbauer) (03/01/88)
In article <689@nuchat.UUCP>, steve@nuchat.UUCP (Steve Nuchia) writes: > From article <4280@b-tech.UUCP>, by zeeff@b-tech.UUCP (Jon Zeeff): > > ...There do seem to be a > > large number of non repeatable disk errors. Does anyone else get frequent > > disk errors? > I've been getting them since day one, december 86. ... I run two Miniscribe 72 meg drives on an 8 MHz and have never had a problem - since I changed disk controllers. ...don't know if this is your problem, but it's something to check. When I went from a Seagate 40 meg (full height) to the first Miniscribe, I could not get Unix to run or install. It had worked OK on the 40, but it had been really hard to get the install to work; I got "wn i/o errors", but they finally cleared up. Anyway, with the Miniscribe, I got "can't find active partition end record" errors and wn i/o's when trying to write them. The Miniscribe worked fine from DOS, of course. Anyway, after a week of this (to wax anecdotal), I was ready to give up, sell the machine, and wait for a better path to personal Unix. Finally, I decided that it had to be the controller. My clone salesman buddy said that couldn't possibly be it, but kindly lent me a new controller anyway. It worked like a champ. The funky controller that worked fine for DOS but not for Unix was made by National Computers Ltd. (NCL). It is a nice looking board with a few custom chips (NCL) and not much else. The board I replaced it with, by chance, had a Western Digital controller chip (the NCL didn't) and was made by a different (but still clone) vendor. Steve, since you mentioned you'd been on the phone with WD, I assume you've already tried a different controller. Have you tried a different vendor's controller as well? I seem to recall that you have a clone - a Taiwan Inc. controller board would presumably be more likely to be flakey or just enough off spec to make it work under cozy standard- testbed DOS and not exotic Unix. It's a shot, anyway. -k -- "Lack of skill dictates economy of style." - Joey Ramone ..!uunet!nuchat!sugar!karl, Unix BBS (713) 438-5018