Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!uunet!mcsun!ukc!tcdcs!csvax1.cs.tcd.ie!ecarroll From: ecarroll@csvax1.cs.tcd.ie (Eddy Carroll) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Disk Alignment Message-ID: <52938@csvax1.cs.tcd.ie> Date: 23 Aug 89 13:30:25 GMT References: <122819@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga Organization: Computer Science Department, Trinity College Dublin Lines: 35 (George Armhold) writes: > ... Sometimes when I try to boot from a Workbench disk the > machine just grinds away at the disk. It takes about 5 minutes to boot > from a disk that usually boots in 3. If I try booting a few times the > problem sometimes goes away. ... In article <122819@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>, (Chuck McManis) replies: > What your problem is, is called disk validation. [ Good explanation of disk validation deleted ] > This can take a noticebly long time especially if you have lots of files > on the disk. Once it's been validated thought you won't have to validate > it again (until it has been written to) and so reboots from that point on > will happen much more quickly. The disk validator itself isn't too slow; the real problem is that it's trying to validate the disk at the same time as the startup-sequence is executing. This results in two seperate processes trying to access the disk at the same time, and sends AmigaDOS scurrying back and forth over the disk surface reading blocks alternately for each process. This makes things MUCH slower than you might otherwise expect, and is accompanied by what sounds like AmigaDOS trying to eat your disk (it doesn't actually do any damage, other than adding a little extra wear and tear to the drive mechanism). When this happens, the best idea is to stop the startup-sequence from executing, and let the disk validator get on with its work. You can do this by pressing CTRL-D, and then rebooting after the drive has stopped for more than 4 seconds or so. An alternative is to just press SPACE, which will pause the startup-sequence, the next time it tries to output a message. When all disk activity has stopped, just press BACKSPACE to resume the startup-sequence. -- Eddy Carroll ----* Genuine MUD Wizard | "You haven't lived until INTER: ecarroll@cs.tcd.ie | you've died in MUD!" UUCP: {..uunet}!mcvax!ukc!cs.tcd.ie!csvax1!ecarroll | -- Richard Bartle