hull@hao.ucar.edu (Howard Hull) (05/12/91)
I ordered an A3000 from a local dealer in mid-March. CBM delivered the CPU within two weeks of the order, but the dealer's memory supplier was unable to come up with the sc-zips I requested until mid-April. The configuration I requested was 4Meg of Fast RAM and 2Meg of Chip RAM, plus a 100 Meg hard disk. I was surprised that this configuration could not be ordered direct from CBM (thus requiring the dealer to install the sc-zips) but I'm not CBM and I don't have any ties to the dealership. But projects at work have kept me rather busy until this weekend, when I finally had a chance to set it up. Hey. The hard disk is _weird_; the HDToolbox says it is a Quantum LP105S. What it likes to do is spin down while I am working in an Editor and am not actively accessing the disk. When I go to write the file, it then spins up (takes about eight seconds) and does the write. I go on and work for about a minute more, and then the disk spins down agin. This is driving me crazy! Is this time programmable? How? Is it adjustable? How? Do I have to blow my warranty to coerce this puppy not to pee on the rug like this? And worse yet, am I in the wrong century, I mean, what I learned the last time I was on this planet was that the two most life-shortening things that hard disks had trouble enduring were spin-down/spin-up and heat. What this LP105S does may keep it cool and be kind to its bearings, but unless it has some new technique to deal with head landing it is going to be kinda rough on the write comp cyl (2097), isn't it? And one other thing - I did my duty and backed up the two sys partitions to floppy. In the deep recesses of my remeberings, I recalled that it was also possible to back up the Rigid Disk Block Partition to machine readable media. I went through 4000 net articles with GNUgrep looking for how to do this, but I must have been remembering stuff posted about Microbotics Hardframe; like doing it with RDPrep and redirecting it to a file. What is the AmigaDOS equivalent to RDPrep? I notice that there is a prep script file that has the command "writerdp" in it. I tried the command substituting "readrdp" with re-direct to a file in RAM: but no file whatsoever was written. Any contributed helpful notions about any of these things will be sincerely appreciated, thus I thanks ye in advance... Howard Hull hull@ncar.ucar.edu
es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) (05/13/91)
In article <11385@ncar.ucar.edu> hull@hao.ucar.edu (Howard Hull) writes: >I ordered an A3000 from a local dealer in mid-March. CBM delivered the CPU >within two weeks of the order, but the dealer's memory supplier was unable >to come up with the sc-zips I requested until mid-April. The configuration >I requested was 4Meg of Fast RAM and 2Meg of Chip RAM, plus a 100 Meg hard >disk. I was surprised that this configuration could not be ordered direct >from CBM (thus requiring the dealer to install the sc-zips) but I'm not CBM >and I don't have any ties to the dealership. But projects at work have kept >me rather busy until this weekend, when I finally had a chance to set it up. > Commodore DOES make that model, or almost exactly that model. It is 1MB chip and 4MB fast. In fact, Commodore doesn't make the model you bought, so I don't know what your dealer sold you. That configuration hasn't existed since about October of last year. >Hey. The hard disk is _weird_; the HDToolbox says it is a Quantum LP105S. >What it likes to do is spin down while I am working in an Editor and am not >actively accessing the disk. When I go to write the file, it then spins up >(takes about eight seconds) and does the write. I go on and work for about >a minute more, and then the disk spins down agin. This is driving me crazy! >Is this time programmable? How? Is it adjustable? How? Do I have to blow >my warranty to coerce this puppy not to pee on the rug like this? > It shouldn't do this. Call the 800 number and get your on-site service. >And worse yet, am I in the wrong century, I mean, what I learned the last >time I was on this planet was that the two most life-shortening things that >hard disks had trouble enduring were spin-down/spin-up and heat. What this >LP105S does may keep it cool and be kind to its bearings, but unless it has >some new technique to deal with head landing it is going to be kinda rough >on the write comp cyl (2097), isn't it? As before, it shouldn't do this. > >And one other thing - I did my duty and backed up the two sys partitions to >floppy. In the deep recesses of my remeberings, I recalled that it was also >possible to back up the Rigid Disk Block Partition to machine readable media. >I went through 4000 net articles with GNUgrep looking for how to do this, but >I must have been remembering stuff posted about Microbotics Hardframe; like >doing it with RDPrep and redirecting it to a file. What is the AmigaDOS >equivalent to RDPrep? I notice that there is a prep script file that has >the command "writerdp" in it. I tried the command substituting "readrdp" >with re-direct to a file in RAM: but no file whatsoever was written. > It isn't necessary for you to back up the system partitions. You should have gotten disks with the computer (in the thick binder called Using The System Software) which have the OS on them, as well as an install program that'll copy the files for you. >Any contributed helpful notions about any of these things will be sincerely >appreciated, thus I thanks ye in advance... > > Howard Hull > hull@ncar.ucar.edu -- Ethan GEORGE BUSH MURDER ASSASSINATE PENTAGON CAPITOL WHITE HOUSE Greetings to the loyal Americans working at the NSA! Enjoy.
blgardne@javelin.sim.es.com (Blaine Gardner) (05/14/91)
hull@hao.ucar.edu (Howard Hull) writes: >Hey. The hard disk is _weird_; the HDToolbox says it is a Quantum LP105S. >What it likes to do is spin down while I am working in an Editor and am not >actively accessing the disk. Sounds like a broken drive to me, I'd put your warranty to use. The LP105S that came with my A3000 does not do this. >In the deep recesses of my remeberings, I recalled that it was also >possible to back up the Rigid Disk Block Partition to machine readable media. >I must have been remembering stuff posted about Microbotics Hardframe; like >doing it with RDPrep and redirecting it to a file. What is the AmigaDOS >equivalent to RDPrep? Yes, you were thinking of Microbotics RDPrep program. Its AmigaDOS equivalent is HDToolBox. But as you've noticed, HDToolBox does not have the ability to create a mountlist or save the RDB to a file. If you happen to have a Hardframe (or have a friend that owns one), RDPrep will work with the A3000's controller. -- Blaine Gardner @ Evans & Sutherland 580 Arapeen Drive, SLC, Utah 84108 blgardne@javelin.sim.es.com BIX: blaine_g DoD #46 My other motorcycle is a Quadracer. FJ1200 Now I know why they are called BUTTERflys!
jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) (05/24/91)
In article <1991May12.231315.29101@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) writes: >>Hey. The hard disk is _weird_; the HDToolbox says it is a Quantum LP105S. >>What it likes to do is spin down while I am working in an Editor and am not >>actively accessing the disk. When I go to write the file, it then spins up >>(takes about eight seconds) and does the write. I go on and work for about >>a minute more, and then the disk spins down agin. This is driving me crazy! >>Is this time programmable? How? Is it adjustable? How? Do I have to blow >>my warranty to coerce this puppy not to pee on the rug like this? >> > It shouldn't do this. Call the 800 number and get your >on-site service. I suspect quantum/whoever has managed to set up the drive in some sort of power-saving mode, where it spins down when not in use. If it's under warranty (and I assume it is), go ahead and get it fixed. >>equivalent to RDPrep? I notice that there is a prep script file that has >>the command "writerdp" in it. I tried the command substituting "readrdp" >>with re-direct to a file in RAM: but no file whatsoever was written. Gack. That script is not something you want to muck with, if you do the wrong thing you could destroy the data on your disk (at least theoretically). That's "writerdsk", btw. Essentially that says "we're done, write out the new rdsk to the drive". HDToolBox doesn't have equivalent to the RDPrep rdsk-backup-file. If you have access to a copy of RDPrep it will work on an A3000. > It isn't necessary for you to back up the system >partitions. You should have gotten disks with the computer (in >the thick binder called Using The System Software) which have the >OS on them, as well as an install program that'll copy the files >for you. True, so long as you didn't modify the setup the install disks have the information to recreate the RDSK on them. You can also use a strange archaic method: handwriting, or even type the information into a file (don't store it on the disk!) -- Randell Jesup, Jack-of-quite-a-few-trades, Commodore Engineering. {uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com BIX: rjesup Disclaimer: Nothing I say is anything other than my personal opinion. "No matter where you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Banzai
tlbaltad@pacengr.UUCP (Tim Baltad) (05/25/91)
In article <21869@cbmvax.commodore.com>, jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) writes: > In article <1991May12.231315.29101@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) writes: > >>Hey. The hard disk is _weird_; the HDToolbox says it is a Quantum LP105S. > >>What it likes to do is spin down while I am working in an Editor and am not > >>actively accessing the disk. When I go to write the file, it then spins up > >>(takes about eight seconds) and does the write. I go on and work for about I beleive there is a WS (Wait/Spin) jumper on the drive that must be removed, so that the drive spins up on power up instead of waiting for drive access. BTW that is the new 105 SCSI...LP means low profile. Tim