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From: ac365@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Todd Donovan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Hard Disk Problems
Message-ID: <9012112221.AA05024@cwns1.INS.CWRU.Edu>
Date: 11 Dec 90 22:21:03 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: ac365@cleveland.Freenet.Edu
Lines: 41




I have an Atari Mega 4ST with a Syquest 44 megabyte removable hard drive 
running with an ICD host adapter and system software. My original system 
used an Atari Megafile 30 HD and everything worked fine. Then I added 
the SyQuest44 as a second HD and problems started. I switched the Syquest 
to DMA 0 and removed the Megafile 30 thinking that the computer was 
having trouble managing two hard drives. This helped, but it didn't 
really. I then removed the special features provided like read/write 
caching and write verifies. Reliability improved tremendously. I was no 
longer getting persistent write fails, missing files, and accidental 
deletes.

My current problems include files getting mistakenly trashed. That is, a 
file which I never saved onto is getting truncated and corrupted. It is 
like the disk table isn't being done correctly and the computer uses the 
same sector twice. Also, sometimes two quite dissimilar files become 
merged. I have my biggest problems with large files. Maybe its just the 
law of averages which allow larger files to be corrupted easier. For 
example animations are prime candidates; however, there isn't always a 
rhyme or reason to the corruption.

Also, sometimes when the hard drive should not be called for, the head 
engages (I can hear it) and the red light comes on for a couple of 
seconds. Then everything returns to normal. The computer's operation 
isn't affected at all during this "blip".


What can be done to stop these problems?

Thanx in advance!




--
   /|   Todd Donovan: ac365@cleveland.freenet.edu
  / |   President and General Manager 
 /__|   Channel 4 WCFT-Television Chagrin Falls
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