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From: weber@brand.UUCP (Allan G. Weber)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: MacSCSI problems
Message-ID: <170@brand.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 20-Nov-85 13:47:37 EST
Article-I.D.: brand.170
Posted: Wed Nov 20 13:47:37 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 23-Nov-85 04:27:45 EST
Distribution: na
Organization: U. of So. Calif., Los Angeles
Lines: 32

About two weeks ago I finished collecting together the pieces to build the
MacSCSI hard disk described in Dr. Dobbs Journal.  The first time I got it
all plugged togther, it came up just like the documentation said it would
and seemed to work fine.  Since then, however, the reliability of the disk
has rotted away to the point that it is now almost useless.  Some of the
problems that I've seen are:

1. Disk mounting program gets hung.  Mac has to be rebooted to recover.
2. Mount program executes with no apparent problems but when the finder
   comes back up, the disk icon for the hard disk isn't on the screen.
3. Programs report errors writing to the hard disk.
4. Finder reports that it can't build the desktop for the hard disk since
   it's write-locked (which it isn't).
5. Programs run from the hard disk "bomb" with great regularity and an
   amazing variety of error codes.
6. Disk formatting program hangs before doing anything.
7. Disk formatting program starts to format but doesn't complete due
   to write errors.

The problems are getting worse as time goes by.  What started out as an
occasion error has grown to where the thing is effectively useless.  A lot
of the problems could be due to an increasing number of bad blocks on the
disk but I don't know what would be causing this.

My configuration is the SCSI Interface from Fastime, a Xebec S1410A
controller, and a Shugart 604 5mb disk.  I would be interested in hearing
from any other MacSCSI builders who have had similar troubles (or lack of
them).  If anybody has any advice, I'm in the mood to listen.  Thanks.

Allan Weber
ARPA:  Weber%Brand@USC-ECL
UUCP:  ...sdcrdcf!oberon!brand!weber