Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ll-xn!oberon!pollux.usc.edu!papa
From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Now what?  (Hard Disk woes.)
Message-ID: <7311@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: 1 Mar 88 05:44:43 GMT
References: <4269@dandelion.CI.COM>
Sender: news@oberon.USC.EDU
Reply-To: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Organization: Felsina Software, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 43

In article <4269@dandelion.CI.COM> dgg@dandelion.CI.COM (Dave Grubbs) writes:
>I have two problems.  Random GURU messages and Hard Disk installation.
>I'd really appreciate a comment or two.  As usual, use electronic mail
>unless the info is of general importance.
>I went and bought a hard-disk.  I bought it from my friendly dealer, from
>whom I earlier purchased an A2000 to replace my A1000.  I had 2Meg of
                                                               ^^^^
>Microbotics RAM, for which I bought the $40 adapter to allow its insertion
>into the A2000.

>Now for the problem.  The A2000 has worked OK for a while, but every so
>often, say once per hour, it crashes on me.  The "vt100" program does it
>occasionally, INFOCOM games do it occasionally, demos and other junk from
>the net do it occasionally, but DPAINT II is the winner.  I have never
>exited from DPAINT II.  It always crashes the machine after an hour or so.

>My first question is: Could this be a memory problem?  

I THINK SO!

>If so, how do I
>find out?  How does one attack a problem like this?  (I am real good
>at software, but the hardware I have always used is handled by the
>DEC/SUN/APOLLO/IBM field engineers.)

Ask Microbotics to send you a program to check memory.  I have an ASDG 8MI
and routinely run the check program.  The program should be smart enough to
tell you WHICH chip on the board is bad. Note that the Amiga has no parity
checking. On an IBM PC a parity error produces an error code on the screen.
On an Amiga it usually produces an Address error (code 03) or Illegal 
Instruction (code 04) which produces the GURU message.

>vt100, when it crashes always produces GURU:	00000003.00C0270A
                                                      ^^
					THIS IS IT! Address error
>Other random GURU's:				00000003.00204700
>						00000004.00218AD8
						      ^^
					THIS IS ALSO IT: Illegal instruction.
>						00000003.00147040

Good luck.

-- Marco