Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!netcom!onymouse
From: onymouse@netcom.UUCP (John Debert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: 9133D hard disk drive failure.
Message-ID: <20496@netcom.UUCP>
Date: 10 Jan 91 07:30:23 GMT
References: <1991Jan8.161027.4353@odi.com>
Organization: Netcom- The Bay Area's Public Access Unix System {408 241-9760 guest}
Lines: 41

From article <1991Jan8.161027.4353@odi.com>, by ed@odi.com (Ed Schwalenberg):
> I have a system from the dawn of time:  the original HP-110 "Nomad" laptop
> computer, an HP-IL to HP-IB converter, and a 9133D 720K floppy/ 14 MB disk.
> This is all circa 1984, and has run flawlessly until now.  The floppy is
> still happy, but the hard disk now returns garbage from reads
> (no errors, just bogus data) and reports "Media Error" when I try to do a
> DOS format on it.
> 
> Any clues?  I suspect I may need to do a low-level format on the drive;
> any idea how I go about doing that?

I suspect that your hard drive is worn out or has too many bad tracks. HP
drives like the 9133 spare some tracks for use by the controller and also
spare at least one sector per track for use should any sector on a given
track go bad. If the spare sectors and tracks get used up and any more sectors
go bad, then the drive controller sends a "media wear" or "media fail" error
signal to the host controller. Your computer's OS may not be specific about 
the type of error it received during format. There's no way to get around
sparing, et cetera as it's part of the controller firmware.

Low-level formatting is handled by the drive controller as part of the 
formatting procedure and there is no way to do it yourself-not even if you
put it on another PC. The controller does the low-level format, the high
level format, writes worst-case data to all tracks then sets up spares and
marks bad sectors and tracks. Because of this, you don't need to enter bad
sector or media defect info like you would have to with IBM PCompatibles.
It handles all this by itself.

Two suggestions: 
	a) buy a new hard disk and install it in your 9133. (Not hard to do
	   provided that you work carefully.) Look for one with no defects
	   listed on it or you may have a problem with it sooner than you
	   would care for. A 20Mb disk would work just fine, even though
	   the capacity would still be limited to 15Mb.

	b) Take your drive to an repair shop that does HP stuff and have them
	   run it on the Amigo (are "D's" Amigo?) excerciser to see what's
	   happening and why.

jd
onymouse@netcom.UUCP 	netcom!onymouse@apple.com