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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rochester!udel!TCarlin
From: TCarlin@bco-multics.arpa
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Hard disk problems
Message-ID: <870630124631.219587@BCO-MULTICS.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 30-Jun-87 08:46:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: BCO-MULT.870630124631.219587
Posted: Tue Jun 30 08:46:00 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Jul-87 13:33:18 EDT
Sender: galvin@udel.EDU
Distribution: world
Lines: 17
To:  info-minix@louie.udel.edu


I have a NCR AT compatable with 8mhz clock and 20 meg drive.  After
loading MINIX on to a partition, I got the error message "Winchester
wouldn't reset, drive busy" usually followed by file system corruption
when doing a small copy.  Looking at a bios listing I found that
at_wini.c wasn't waiting long enough after a disk error to let the
controller reset.  I modified the module "drive_busy()" to loop through
MAX_WIN_RETRY*1000 (1,000,000) times instead of just MAX_WIN_RETRY
times.  Worked very well.  Haven't got the problem of drive busy again.
It did show up the fact I have a few bad spots on my hard disk.  When I
get a i/o error I just move the file it was writing to a directory on
the hard disk called "badblocks" to keep all the bad blocks together.
MINIX as well as UNIX seems to want totally error free media as neither
has very good if any error correction on hard disk such as marking the
bad block.  Maybe I will look into adding that to MINIX in the spirit of
the thing.  I posted this once before but fat fingered info-minix to
info-unix and sent it to the wrong list.  Terry Carlin Honeywell Bull
Inc.  617 895-3209