CompuServe Messages

<<MS DOS scandisk>> It takes about 15 min on my systems to do the physical scan – sounds like Norton must go over it more than once. It is supposed to mark dubious sectors and stop anything from being written there. <<<Magic dust>>>> Arrgh! You can tell I'll only be dragged by the hair, kicking and screaming on this one. I have two more probably irrelevant questions about HD controllers (anyone should feel free to jump in here). -Are SCSI controllers "as bad, worse or better" than IDE flavor for this type of capricious, sporadic and unpredictable problem. -Is it an issue of "conflict" or of a component of the board "going bad". -I'm sure my dealer wouldn't dream of putting anything but a creme-de-la-creme SCSI controller in my system <bg – hi paul>, assuming that's true, is it as likely a source of conflicts? <<swapping out every card in the system>> The good news is, we have more than one system … the bad news is, I insisted on getting exactly the same brand and model of components whenever possible, on the theories that "the evil you know is better than…" and that it would reduce the number of tech support barriers I'd need to circumvent to get help if I stuck with just a few brands. _____ How the heck can you use this strategy if it's a problem that only occurs every few weeks or so ( – though it's _axiomatic_ those few instances will be timed at the worst possible moments)? _____ Are there diagnostic programs that can be set up to test your controller 1000 times, or something? (overnight!) A final note: If I honestly thought it were possible to put ANYthing in the sys without something new going wrong, I'd not hestitate. Gayle