aleskine@cs.hut.fi (Arto Leskinen) (03/15/91)
I have a Jasmine 80 MB external hard disk that likes to lose its SCSI mapping every time some program writes to the end of one partition. I have partitioned it to four partitions: 55 MB, 15 Mb, 7 MB and 3 MB. The biggest is the start up partition. The story follows: Two times when I was using ZTerm .85 program for downloading files it said that the disk was full. First time it was the start up partition and second time 16 MB partition. Next time when I started the computer it freezed and the red light stayed in HD. Nothing came into screen. When I tried the SUM II it said that the problem was on SCSI mapping. Last time I was using Norton Speed Disk. When it optimizes the disk it first copies the files to the end of the disk/partition and then back. After next start up happened the same thin than before with ZTerm. Is it possible that the drive does not know it real size and lets the programs write outside of writable area or what? Is it possible to save the contents of SCSI-map area to disk as back up. SUM Shield init only saves the directory and does not help here. Does someone know what parameters I should use when I try to recover the disk (VIF Jasmine 80 on SUM II disks does not work, I get the message that structure is not what the program espects and it does not allow me to change it. None of the recovered apps works.)? Tired of crashes and only partial back up. Local support says that this is not a hardware problem and does not intrest them (without money). Arto Leskinen aleskine@niksula.hut.fi
DXBRA@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Dave Blockus) (03/21/91)
Recently we had a _severe_ disk crash of a Jasmine Direct Drive 80. It had begun to vibrate badly a few months ago. However, Jasmine repaired it promptly at no charge. It was only 15 months old, and still under warranty. Thus, we are very pleased with their service. However, in the past we, too, have had several instances where we lost the SCSI mapping. These problems occurred when the disk became nearly filled with data. We maintain two 40 MB "hardware" partitions, using the Jasmine Driveware software. One might argue that our disk was clearly faulty, and that these lost SCSI mapping problems can be blamed on intrinsic weaknesses with our particular unit. Yet, the SCSI problems occurred twice before the vibrations became noticeable. Your tale of woe sounds so familiar, that I begin to worry about a recurrence of the problems. Even when one maintains backups, it can be very painful and time consuming to restore 80 MB. Has anyone else experienced similar problems ? Is this a known disease, with a documented cure ? Thanks for any information... Dave Blockus dxbra@slacvm.slac.stanford.edu