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From: 6500boo@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (William Bushing)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: IDE Drives and Controller Failures
Message-ID: <10676@hub.ucsb.edu>
Date: 19 Apr 91 00:50:43 GMT
Sender: news@hub.ucsb.edu
Distribution: comp
Lines: 30

A word of warning (and request for comments):

After many years of using MFM drives without a single drive
failure, i decided to get an IDE drive on my 386 machine. I
hadn't considered one major problem... the integration of the
controller into the drive!

Although in the past I'd never had a hard disk fail, I did
have 2 controller cards fail. With MFM drives that proved no
problem... I simply replaced a ~ $100 controller and was back
up and running with no data loss.

When the controller on my IDE drive failed, I discovered a
major flaw in IDE design (as far as I can tell)... lose the
controller and you lose the drive AND the data! Compare the
replacement of a $100 controller card with the replacement
of an $800 IDE drive... and the fact that the MFM drive still
has the data intact while your new IDE drive is virgin and
your data history unless (as you should be) you're backed up.

If I'm wrong on this, please respond... I'd love to know how
to pull the data off my IDE drive!


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
William W. (Boo) Bushing  |  "Life is too important to be
6500boo@ucsbuxa.bitnet    |       taken seriously"
6500boo@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu  |            - Einstein
Marine Biotechnology Lab   Univ. of Calif. Santa Barbara
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^