Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!mcdchg!laidbak!tellab5!wheaton!brunk
From: brunk@wheaton.UUCP (Rob Brunk)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: sh204 problems
Message-ID: <2097@wheaton.UUCP>
Date: 2 Jul 90 18:33:59 GMT
Organization: Wheaton College, Wheaton Il
Lines: 46

A few weeks ago my Atari SH204 hard drive started bombing and now I am unsure
about what to do to fix it.  Here is a brief history of what happened and the
solutions I used:

   -brought my hard drive (heads parked) to a friend's house to connect with
   his hard drive.  He had a FA/ST 80Mb drive.  We never got them to work and
   that was the first time I saw my drive act up.  The busy light would stay on
   all the time once the computer was switched on, and it would not respond.

   -took my drive back to my dorm room and reconnected it to my 1040STf.  The
   same problem occurred again.  I played with the cables a little and finally
   got it to boot normally.  I use Atari's auto-booting software v3.0.

   -I then copied some files from floppy to HD and soon found out that the
   filesystem on that partition had been corrupted.  I then used Simon
   Poole's DL II optimiser/checker which seemed to really screw things up.
   I then tried TuneUp! which couldn't fix the errors either.  Both complained
   that there were discrepancies between FAT #1 and FAT #2.

   -after completely reformatting the hard drive (and losing about a month of
   work) and restoring what I had backed up, I thought I had everything under
   control until a week later the same thing happened again.

   -I then ran a program that measures disk rpm's and found that my drive
   varies as much 20 rpm's when consecutive tests are taken.  I am not sure of
   the reliability of that program but I became worried that it was correct.
   If I listen very carefully, I can hear a high-pitched squeal that seems to
   fluctuate around a little when I turn my HD on.

Has anyone ever experienced similar problems?  Someone did tell me that it
might need a good cleaning since it has been in dorm rooms for 2 years now.  If
that is true, is it worth getting it cleaned or should I just spend my money on
a new drive.  This drive is about 2.5 years old and I have never had any
problems like this before.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much,
   Rob


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Rob Brunk                             UUCP: ...!{spl1,obdient}!wheaton!brunk
Wheaton College                          "But I never claimed to be sane!"
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