Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!oneb!onebdos!Bruce.Anderson
From: Bruce.Anderson@onebdos.UUCP (Bruce Anderson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Hard Drive Problems
Message-ID: <3014.273CFA55@onebdos.UUCP>
Date: 11 Nov 90 01:33:55 GMT
Organization: 1B Systems Management Limited, Nanaimo, B.C., Canada
Lines: 60

Here is a good chunk of information wrt the hard drive problem I'm having.

Symptons: When writing to the first partition, (i.e., "C drive"), 
occassionaly the material being written is placed over the partition
table, root directory, and various other places other than where I'd
really like it to go. To this time, touch wood, no other partitions
have been affected. When I restore the partition table as it was, things
are fine, at least once I've reformatted (high-level) the first partition.
I've come to this conclusion as occasionally when it happens, if the
material is ASCII, I can read it as part of the directory information
(rather than filenames etc.)

What I'm using:

    Computer: 20mhz clone 386, 1 meg RAM (no extended)
              1 1.44 31/2 floppy, CMS Jumbo 60 tape backup
              Clone cga adapter, 2 serial with 16550's, no parallel
              AMI Bios (386-BIOS (C) 1987 for MB386-158,
              DC&T-0103-021589-K0) are the only identifying marks
              for the BIOS.

    Drive: Fujitsu M2263E (ESDI) 679 meg. Set up according to manual
           for MS-DOS operation, i.e., gating enabled, hard sectored,
           53 sectors per track (1654 cyls x 15 heads x 53 sectors)

   Controller: Ultrastor Ultra 12F with 32k buffer option, No sector
               mapping, no track mapping, no 1024 cylinder truncation.
 
   Software: Generic MS-DOS 3.3, Disk Manager 4.20 (supplied with drive
             for Fujitsu drives).

Prepared drive using DM. Selected my drive as non-standard parameters,
showed up as 1654x15x53 (cyl x head x sector), which is the same
as the standard. Performed initalization of drive with DM.
 (low level formatting, partitioning, high level format etc.). Partitioned for 
3 cylinder first (DOS) partition, (DM default).
Remainder were read-write partitions of various sizes and cluster formations.
Everything seemed to go pretty smoothly. Restored approximately
120 megs of junk onto drives d and above, no problem. Started modifying
config.sys and autoexec.bat files etc. on first partition, and *boom*,
the partition was trashed, along with the partition table etc. Note
that I've been able to duplicate the problem with a more or less clean
boot - i.e., no autoexec.bat, and only a DEVICE=DMDRVR.BIN and BUFFERS
statement in the config.sys file. When the partition table is trashed
(along with other stuff in the first partition), I'm able to go into
DM and reconstruct the partition table and the partitions above the
first one appear unaffected.

Right now I'm using the drive; it appears that as long as I don't
write to the first (small) partition, things seem to work okay, but
to say the least, I'm nervous. 

Ideas?

 
 

--  
        Bruce Anderson - via IMEx node 89:681/1
        Bruce.Anderson@onebdos.UUCP