Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!umriscc!mcs213i.cs.umr.edu!ronp
From: ronp@cs.umr.edu (Ron Pacheco)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: DOS 5.0 SmartDrive Problems (One man's adventure...)
Message-ID: <2848@umriscc.isc.umr.edu>
Date: 23 Jun 91 03:17:13 GMT
Sender: news@umriscc.isc.umr.edu
Organization: University of Missouri - Rolla
Lines: 92
Originator: ronp@mcs213i.cs.umr.edu

I have seen some discussion on problems with MS-DOS 5.0 SmartDrive and
thought I would contribute my experience.  Up front, I estimate the IQ
of SmartDrive under MS-DOS 5.0 at about one, and that is a generous
estimate.

I have a ZEOS 386/33 machine, and regularly run Windows 3.0 (in enhanced
mode, of course).  I have had no problems whatsoever with the system,
hardware or software, until DOS 5.0 SmartDrive.  The adventure begins...

Last week I installed the MS-DOS 5.0 upgrade, and installed SmartDrive
(I had been using it under MS-DOS 4.01 for quite some time with no
problems).  Things seemed to be okay the first day. The next day,
however, a program I ran reported itself as having been modified.  My
first thought was "Virus!", but this has since been ruled out. So, I ran
CHKDSK.  The CHKDSK program reported one lost cluster. No big deal, I
thought, these occur every now and then, especially when I accidentally
kill communication programs which were running in the background
downloading files.  :o

So...I used CHKDSK itself to fix the lost cluster.  That's when things
really got bad.  Strange things began to happen, and another run of
CHKDSK reported fifty plus lost clusters in several chains, and a whole
list of cross linked files!  I began to become a bit concerned.

Next...fearing for the safety of my thesis and the other really
important stuff on my hard drive (you know, Commander Keen, all of the
King's Quest series -- King's Quest V is a MUST, by the way; the 256
color graphics are unbelievable -- etc.), I decided to back things up.
To do this, I boot from a floppy so that I am using a "clean" (no
strange drivers, disk caches, etc.) system.  I booted MS-DOS 5.0 from a
floppy and ran CHKDSK on my hard drive...it reported NO PROBLEMS!  I
also scanned the entire disk for viruses using the three most
comprehensive virus scanners.  Nothing.

Now, wait a minute!  I was getting conflicting reports here from the
same CHKDSK program (of course, this is a feature of most MicroSoft
software anyway :).  I decided to boot from the hard drive.  HARDWARE
ILLEGAL INSTRUCTION TRAP!  Wow...this was getting good.  My thesis due
in one week and my computer decides its time for technical problems.

Not knowing what happened, suspecting a possible hard disk glitch, I
backed up the entire drive (which is fun because I do not yet have a
tape drive on this system...luckily the disk is only 130 meg... :).
After doing this, I reinstalled DOS 4.01, and then reinstalled the
version 5.0 upgrade (with SmartDrive, just as before).  Things were
going just fine, until I started restoring files from the backups.  The
restoration was moving along just find, and then ALL OF A SUDDEN nearly
every file in one directory was reported as failing a CRC test upon
being restored.  I stopped restoring and ran CHKDSK.  Again, one lost
cluster reported.  Hmmmn?  Isn't this how all this got started?  Instead
of attempting to fix it with CHKDSK, I ran Norton Disk Doctor.  NDD also
reported one lost cluster.

Okay, this time I decided to see what a clean DOS system thought before
I did anything else to the hard drive.  I rebooted from a clean floppy,
and guess what.  CHKDSK reported NO PROBLEMS with the hard drive, and
neither did NDD.  So, I decided to see what DOS on the hard drive
thought about all this.  An attempt to reboot from the hard drive
resulted in a hardware illegal instruction trap.  Oh no, here we go
again.

After rebooting from a floppy, I ran diagnostics on the memory and hard
disk, and uncovered nothing.  I really did not suspect the hardware, but
you never know...

While running off a floppy, I renamed my CONFIG.SYS file to CONFIG.SAV.
The machine now booted from the hard disk without incident.  After a
couple more hours of "playing" with various configurations of my
CONFIG.SYS file, I began to suspect SmartDrive.  Whenever SmartDrive was
loaded, things would seem to go wrong with the hard drive, but would not
be reported as a problem when the system was booted from a clean floppy.
Also, whenever SmartDrive was activated by CONFIG.SYS, the machine would
sometimes refuse to boot due to a hardware illegal instruction trap.

I have since reinstalled DOS 5.0 again, and am not using SmartDrive. The
machine has performed flawlessly without SmartDrive (I am using Norton's
fast cache for the time being).  ZEOS technical support informed me that
no other such problem had been reported to them, gave me a few hardware
switch settings to verify (which I have), and suggested it might be an
incompatibility with the Mylex BIOS.  They are sending a Phoenix BIOS so
I can give it a whirl.

I was actually relieved to see a posting to the newsgroup about other
problems with SmartDrive under DOS 5.0.  I sympathized with the
problems, but my faith in my hardware was somewhat restored.  Anyone
else out there with similar experiences?  Especially on ZEOS 386
machines?


-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ron Pacheco "puh-check'-oh"  8-)                         ronp@cs.umr.edu