#Hard Drive Woes
9 messages in this thread
Hi. I have a 40mb SCSI Miniscribe hard drive mounted on a Microbotics
HardFrame 2000. I have been getting Read/Write errors on my hard drive for
months now. I get them with approximately 20mb left on the drive. I
recently purchased the Dunlap Utilities. DU contains a program called
VerifyDisk that deallocates bad sectors so the Amiga won't attempt to use
'em… at least that's what I got out of the docs.
To make a long story medium, I have tried low level formats, high level
formats and the VerifyDisk utility but am still receiving read/write errors
when my drive gets a little over half way full. Does it sound like my
drive is bad? Does anyone know how to get a Miniscribe drive serviced
these days? I bought it from a wholesaler (Hamilton-Avenet) who at the time
was one Miniscribes largest resellers. With Miniscribe in bankruptcy, I
wonder if I will have trouble getting it fixed.
Wishing he'd bought a Quantum…
Nevin
I remember reading way back that early beta versions of the 1.3
FastFileSystem would trash a hard drive when it got over half way full.
Make sure you have the latest version (mine is Version 36.03 dated 5/9/89).
Probably not your problem unless you accidently got ahold of an old version
somewhere. And as far as MiniScribe goes, I've been burned also. I have a
40meg in the corner that has a bad controller card that I would like to get
fixed, but the repair costs are almost as much as what I originally paid
for the drive! So I now have a Quantum 105S and I'm very happy with it so
far. So maybe your best bet is to go ahead and get a Quantum, and use the
MiniScribe for a bookend 8*)
John Gager
Concerning the reliability of Quantum drives – my system has been down for
about a month now due to the failure of my Quant I would expect better than
6 months service from such an expensive drive but the dealer I spoke to
said they have problems with heads sticking and inadequate startup current
due to aging solder joints. The real fun comes when you try to return the
drive for warranty repairs. Quantum demands the user get RA numbers not
only from the dealer but from anyone who has ever handled the drive prior
to the dealer from which you purchased it ( I'm serious – this is the
policy I was given after waiting several days for a return call on their
tech line ). All things considered Quantum wont be the supplier of my next
hard drive – they may have a technically superior product but the company
seems unable to deal with the consumers real needs for warranty support.
\exit
Gary,
Quantum, as are most large drive manufacturers, is not really set up to
deal with a bunch of enduser warranty repairs. Their warranty period
usually starts from the time that the drive is shipped to their first
customer. To have your warranty verified, they have to find this first
invoice and shipping date. This is probably the reason that they asked for
all of the RA numbers.
You have discovered the hard way some of the pitfalls of endusers, or
dealers, building up their own drive systems. Everything usually is great
as long as the drive works, but if it fails you may have a big problem.
Waiting several months for a drive to be repaired is not too uncommon.
Buying the complete system from a drive vendor like Supra often will be
advantageous when you have problems. We repair all customer drives
immediately, even if we have to replace them with a brand new one. The we
take care of have the defective repaired by the original manufacturer. The
customer often has an operating drive back from us within a week.
A lot of people think they can save a lot of money be building their own
system. But I suggest that they consider all of the long term costs and
ramifications of doing so.
John
Supra Corp.
And a very expensive bookend at that (sigh). Thanks for your comments. My
FastFileSystem is dated 10/89.
Nevin
Nevin,
When you first set up the drive did it format out to as many cylinders as
your mountlist entry says exist on the drive? When I was setting up one of
my hard drives the format kept bombing out before it got to the end of the
disk and I got errors once the disk became full enough. I ended up running
format over and over until the entire drive formatted.
Peter_S (LeCroy Corp)
"Software means never having to say you're finished"
One of the advantages of the HardFrame controller is it automounts. I'll
have to go back and take a closer look at what I have after I format.
Thanks for your comments.
Nevin
Nevin,
One possibility is that you've set up the drive for more cylinders than
are actually available for use. I've fallen into this trap before, and
encountered symptoms similar to what you are reporting. When you did the
high-level format of the drive partitions (AmigaDOS format command), did
you use the "Quick" option or not? If you did, than this is likely your
problem (as the Quick format doesn't do much, and won't fail even if you
"lied" about the size of the drive, within limits).
I have found that some drives claim to have more cylinders available
than are actually available. This is because some of the cylinders are
reserved (for bad-block remapping, and sometimes for the software needed by
the drive's controller). If I remember correctly, the number reported by
my large Miniscribe disk to the Hardframe's rdprep program was not correct,
and I had to manually adjust it when I partitioned the drive. The only way
I found to really get things set up stably is to use trial-and-error. Try
setting up the drive with the number of cylinders you think it should be.
Then do an AmigaDOS format of the last partition (do a "full" format, not a
QUICK one). If the format command fails, take note of the cylinder it
failed on, and treat that as the high-cylinder. I've used this method
while setting up a number of HD's of various size and manufacture, and I've
yet to have a problem.
By the way, Miniscribe is no longer in bankruptcy. They were bought out
by Maxtor. I don't know if Maxtor is doing anything in way of support for
the Mini's or not. If you really need, a friend of a friend of mine was a
former repair tech for Miniscribe, and I think he has gone "independant" in
the HD repair business. If you'd like, I can make a couple of phone calls
to see if he wants his name/address publicized or not and pass this on if
it's OK with him.
Hope this helps…
…BobR
White Wolf Productions
Thanks for the info, Bob. Yes, did perform the QUICK bankrupt as that's
what the HardFrame docs recommended. I'll get back to you after I've tried
the regular format command.
Thanks again,
Nevin