mjkobb@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Michael J Kobb) (02/21/90)
Well, this is truly odd. Last night around 2:00 my LaCie Cirrus 105 external drive dropped dead for about ten minutes. The sequence of events leading up to this happening, and after: 1.) I took the drive in to work with me, and hooked it up to a MacII with an internal 80Mb drive (also a Cirrus, I think). My drive would not spin up if the Mac II was powered off, and I had trouble getting it to mount. I got the message "SCSI bus is not responding" at least once. After awhile, it worked fine. (There had been absolutely no trouble with this drive before this time). 2.) I brought the drive back home, hooked it up, and booted. I got the message "The Finder on this startup disk is damaged. The Installer can be used to repair it". After that, the drive totally refused to come up. It didn't even show up on the SCSI bus (looking with SCSI Tools after booting from a floppy). Again, this problem went away after multiple power cycles, and switching the SCSI cable back and forth between the jacks. 3.) Last night around 2:00, I was uploading files to America Online, and the upload died in mid stream; apparently the Mac couldn't read from the drive any more. I rebooted successfully, finished the uploads, then ran LaCie's SilverLining diagnostic software. The "Short Tests" returned several thousand errors, and I canceled them (no audible drive action during this time). When I tried "Full Read/Write tests" I was greeted by the lovely sound of my drive motor spinning down. 10 minutes of panic ensued, since the drive was not recently backed up (I had just written about 10 meg to it when I took it into work; one-copy-only material). I booted off of floppy, and SCSI Tools showed two SCSI devices: #7 (the mac) and #1. I don't have a SCSI #1. I have a #5 (the LaCie), but it wasn't talking. After multiple power cycles, and rotating the case of the drive it around in my hands (powered off, obviously) in case it was suffering stiction, it spun up. I immediately backed it up and the went to bed (by then it was 5:00 am). 4.) I booted this morning without incident, and ran the SilverLining tests without incident. 5.) I called LaCie Tech Support, and they said that they hadn't heard this set of symptoms before. He said he would discourage me from sending the drive in, since if they couldn't reproduce the error, I'd be screwed out of a few weeks use of the drive. He suggested frequent backups and pious living, basically, and wait until it fails more permanently, or just works fine from now on. Has anybody ever seen such a thing before? It was really odd to me that the drive would just spontaneously spin down and then put up an erroneous address on the bus. It sounds to me like the SCSI controller in the drive has dropped dead. Anybody concur? Or am I seeing stiction? Thanks for any help/advice you can give me! --Mike
alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Alex Pournelle) (02/23/90)
mjkobb@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Michael J Kobb) writes: >Well, this is truly odd. Last night around 2:00 my LaCie Cirrus 105 external >drive dropped dead for about ten minutes. The sequence of events leading up >to this happening, and after: >Long and very detailed list of symptoms... >5.) I called LaCie Tech Support, and they said that they hadn't heard this >set of symptoms before. He said he would discourage me from sending the drive >in, since if they couldn't reproduce the error, I'd be screwed out of a few >weeks use of the drive. He suggested frequent backups and pious living, >basically, and wait until it fails more permanently, or just works fine from >now on. >Has anybody ever seen such a thing before? It was really odd to me that the >drive would just spontaneously spin down and then put up an erroneous address >on the bus. It sounds to me like the SCSI controller in the drive has dropped >dead. Anybody concur? Or am I seeing stiction? Doubt it's sticky, 'r' else it wouldn't run up/down. Did you check out the power supply for the drive? Run it with a voltmeter. Otherwise, I'm afraid he's right--hope it fails (or not?) more "reliably". Good luck... Alex (I'm with a data recovery company--hopefully you won't need us, but keep me handy if you do: Workman & Associates 1925 East Mountain Street Pasadena CA 91104 818-791-7979 )
mjkobb@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Michael J Kobb) (02/24/90)
In article <1990Feb23.002911.5814@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us> alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Alex Pournelle) writes: >mjkobb@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Michael J Kobb) writes: > >>Well, this is truly odd. Last night around 2:00 my LaCie Cirrus 105 external >>drive dropped dead for about ten minutes. The sequence of events leading up >>to this happening, and after: >>Long and very detailed list of symptoms... > >Doubt it's sticky, 'r' else it wouldn't run up/down. Did you check out >the power supply for the drive? Run it with a voltmeter. Otherwise, >I'm afraid he's right--hope it fails (or not?) more "reliably". > >Good luck... Thanks, I'll need it. Just to update the saga, the next morning at 2:00, the drive dropped dead again. The Mac froze completely, and when I rebooted, the drive did not appear. I ran Silver Lining, and it told me the SCSI bus wasn't responding. LaCie Tech Support, when I talked to them, said I should check the drive on another mac if it failed again, to make sure it wasn't the IIx's SCSI flaking out. So, I hauled it down the hall to my friend's room, and plugged into his SE. Same thing. No SCSI bus for awhile, then when it came up, it was putting up a bogus SCSI address on the bus, etc, etc. In short, it's headed for Tigard, Oregon for the LaCie folks to look at. They said that if I ship 2nd day air, as they do, that I should have it back in 1-1/2 weeks. Not bad. Meantime, I'm running the IIx off of floppies. Oh, joy. Cheers, --Mike
jwg1@gte.com (James W. Gish) (02/28/90)
In article <1698@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> mjkobb@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Michael J Kobb) writes: ... story about drive failure and bogus SCSI id.... > out. So, I hauled it down the hall to my friend's room, and plugged into his > SE. Same thing. No SCSI bus for awhile, then when it came up, it was putting > up a bogus SCSI address on the bus, etc, etc. > > In short, it's headed for Tigard, Oregon for the LaCie folks to look at. > They said that if I ship 2nd day air, as they do, that I should have it back > in 1-1/2 weeks. Not bad. Meantime, I'm running the IIx off of floppies. Oh, Before you do that, try a different cable and make sure it is secured tightly. I've had similar symptoms occur on my Decstation when I didn't have a good connection. I've noticed that many people, myself included, tend to look for the more complex solutions to problems and ignore some of the simpler things. I've been burned by bad cabling/connections more than once. -- Jim Gish GTE Laboratories, Inc., Waltham, MA CSNET: jgish@gte.com UUCP: ..!harvard!bunny!jwg1