Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!decwrl!shelby!lindy!news
From: LC.YRS@forsythe.stanford.edu (Richard Stanton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Head parking routines
Message-ID: <5852@lindy.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 17 Nov 89 17:38:18 GMT
Sender: news@lindy.Stanford.EDU (News Service)
Lines: 25

I've just downloaded a few auto head parking routines from SIMTEL -
they seemed like a good idea after watching my computer dancing
around on my desk during the last earthquake. These are meant to
park the heads after a period of no use.

I tried one of them, which tried to find the last track on my disk,
but seemed unable to do so. The heads kept whirring, and clicking
and I finally rebooted in terror. The second program seemed to work.
After a minurte there was a little noise as the heads moved.
HOwever, when I next tried to use the disk, there was no sound of
the heads moving much to get back into position.

My disk is a Seagate ST251, formatted MFM, and partitioned into a 32
and a 10 Mb drive. The entry in the BIOS setup table understates the
number of tracks on the disk, as there is not a comparable entry in
the available table (I have an Epson Equity II+). Does anyone know
how these programs decide where to park the heads, as I'd like to be
sure it's not just parking them somewhere in the middle of drive D:,
which it would do if it read the BIOS information.

Thanks

Richard Stanton

pstanton@gsb-what.stanford.edu