esker@abaa.uucp (Lawrence Esker) (07/24/89)
I am posting this for my brother who does not have access to the net. He
has been having persistent problems with data integrity on 'JLink' virtual
drives in the IBM side of the bridgeboard. If you attempt to send a
response my mail, good luck. The auto addresses in the header differs from
my SA's addresses which I have in my .signature. I don't know why yet.
Problem Description:
It seems that when my brother writes some ibm [insignificant machine gets
small letters :-)] data to an established sub-directory then go off and do
other operations, the directory keys can get screwed up. The current data
files and some of the previous files are inaccessible on his next use of the
machine. Many times the entire sub-directory can get lost. The problem may
not show up for weeks at a time and he can not localize the data loss to any
specific sequence of operation. If a user can't depend on the reliability
of disk storage, the (ibm virtual drive) system becomes useless. Does
anyone share this problem. Can anyone help?
Since attempting to resolve the problem, I have encountered an article on
the bridgeboard in "Compute's Amiga Resource". It said you must always
unlink the virtual drive before closing the ibm window or turning off the
machine (nothing about ibm or Amiga reboot.) This doesn't help for the ever
popular ibm hang-up condition needing a Ctrl-Alt_Del.
Anyway, why does it matter if virtual drives are unlinked? The Amiga PCdisk
server should do automatic writes of pending data after the ~0.5 sec
timeout. Similar to doing a floppy or A2090A HD write and watching the
disk access ~0.5 secs after all is finished. If its the responsibilty of
the hard disk device to get data written out, then maybe this is a bug with
his GVP hard disk system. We don't have a clue.
This raises another question I had no answer for. Why is a virtual drive on
the ibm a single Amiga file. A significant reliability issue IMHO. A
single problem can destroy a whole (ibm) disk and DiskDoctor can't help.
Also makes Amiga backups a b*#%ch. My brother is now using an ibm
equivalent to DiskDoctor (chkdsk) and Backup, but he still loses important
data once in a while.
Is there a way to force PCdisk to complete pending writes once the ibm has
crashed, before rebooting it and remounting the virtual drives? Maybe
executing PCdisk a second time?
Other Possible Bugs:
The command AREAD does not seem to transfer data between an Amiga file and a
virtual drive. It just sits and loops forever. Is this a real bug? Since
both source and destination go through JLink and PCdisk simultaneously, I
can see possible interaction problems. It would be nice if there was an
Amiga utility that could understand, extract, or insert data directly into
the Amiga file of the ibm virtual drive.
Another apparent bug in JLink. If the bridgeboard is started up, JLink
used, and the ibm is rebooted for whatever reason, then going back to the
Amiga windows via A-N & A-M or exiting the ibm causes all the windows there
to be in a strange character set. Including the CLI with the ibm started via
workbench. This only occurs if JLink was used during the first boot.
My Brother's System:
Amiga 2000 B, v4.4 or later. (Mine is v4.4, purchased before his).
Amiga 2088 BridgeBoard. (I don't have one, so I can't help much).
GVP Impact 40, 40 meg hard disk.
Normal 1/2 Meg Chip, 1/2 Meg Semi-Fast, no SuperFatAgnus.
No IBM peripherals.
Virtual drive c: is system files.
Virtual drive d: is his personal files.
Virtual drive e: is his wife's WordStar Psychology term papers.
I think you can see the reason for needing a puke ibm along with his Amiga
and the urgency for more reliable data storage.
(flame on)
His dealer, Systems Plus at Kenrick Plaza St. Louis, has been totally
useless. They also have a habit of charging for every visit just to say "We
can't find any problem and we're charging $100 to swap the bridgeboard."
They also told him that Amiga said dealers could NOT copy the 2286 software
onto his 2088 disk due to difference in documentation despite being informed
of Paul H.'s post on the net encouraging it. My brother intentionally went
to a dealer instead of (my suggestion) of mail order for the support he is
not getting now.
(flame off)
Amiga Customer Support in NJ offered no help either. To quote; "The lady
sounded like a secretary who just looks up keywords in a database. I must
not have said the right words because she couldn't find anything related to
my problem." We're hoping that the Amiga engineers, marketeers, or hackers
(ie. experts) here on the net can help.
--
---------- Lawrence W. Esker ---------- ^k i /From: flamer@name/j <ESC> :wq
\ * * * ******* /
\ * * * * * / Sr. Hardware/ASIC Design Engineer
\ * * * * * ***** / Allen-Bradley Communications Div.
\ * * * * * * / Phone: (313)668-2500 (313)973-8561
\ ******* * * ******* / Compuserve: ?????-????
----------------------------- (A new job for LWE, please!)
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Nothing left to do but :-) :-) :-)