Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!oliveb!tymix!tardis!jms
From: jms@tardis.Tymnet.COM (Joe Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Floppy select light stays on forever, disk is hung.
Summary: Keep floppies in all drives to avoid this bug.
Keywords: Trackdisk Bug
Message-ID: <429@tardis.Tymnet.COM>
Date: 17 Jul 89 04:38:44 GMT
Reply-To: jms@tardis.Tymnet.COM (Joe Smith)
Organization: McDonnell Douglas Field Service Co, San Jose CA
Lines: 23

Recently, I have been seeing problem with the LED on the floppy disk not
going out.  The disk stays selected, but is not reading or writing.
Sometimes putting a floppy in the OTHER disk would clear up the problem,
but not always.  It seems to have started after I installed a hard disk.

Sound familiar?

I found the answer in Amazing Computing, Vol 4 #2, Feb, 1989, page 38.
Central Coast Software, creators of DOS-2-DOS and QuarterBack, found a bug in
the trackdisk.device.  When the system is polling all empty drives to check if
a new floppy has been inserted, sometimes it releases a different floppy
drive that should still be busy.  The task accessing the disk waits patiently
for a signal that never arrives.

The workaround is to keep disks in all floppy drives at all times.

(The harddisk made it more likely for me to have a floppy in one drive but
not one in the other.)
-- 
Joe Smith (408)922-6220 | SMTP: JMS@F74.TYMNET.COM or jms@tymix.tymnet.com
McDonnell Douglas FSCO  | UUCP: ...!{ames,pyramid}!oliveb!tymix!tardis!jms
PO Box 49019, MS-D21    | PDP-10 support: My car's license plate is "POPJ P,"
San Jose, CA 95161-9019 | narrator.device: "I didn't say that, my Amiga did!"