Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!tektronix!tekgen!tekigm2!timothym
From: timothym@tekigm2.TEK.COM (Timothy D Margeson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Hard disk blues
Message-ID: <2556@tekigm2.TEK.COM>
Date: 22 Feb 88 19:17:36 GMT
References: <5170@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: timothym@tekigm2.UUCP (Timothy D Margeson)
Distribution: na
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR.
Lines: 48
Keywords: Hard Disk

In article <5170@watdragon.waterloo.edu> ajmyrvold@violet.waterloo.edu (Alan Myrvold) writes:
>Mmmmm ... I'm having a tough time with my Seagate ST 238 hard drive
>........ but sometimes it makes these weird noises while doing so :
>   BEEEDEEEDEEEP click BEEEDEEEDEEP click BEEEDEEEDEEEP click etc.
>or    Whiiiiirrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. BEEEDEEEDEEP.
>The end result is that it takes 5 seconds or so to seek a single sector!!!
>

Hi,

This is symptomatic of a hard disk recalibrate in process. So, are you running
a background disk parking program (one that parks the disk every five minutes
or so)?

If you are, what happens is the disk is being sent out past track 615, and any
time this happens, the drive itself performs a reset. All of the whirring is
the drive slowwwwly seeking track 0 to regain control of itself.

I had an ST225 and had to wait for the drive alot myself. I was using a program
called TIMEPARK.COM. Although it was a pain when I wasn't using the disk alot,
it was comforting to know TIMEPARK was doing it's job.

Moral #1:
    Know the effects of all the software you are using. You can avoid many
    headaches this way.

Another source of the problem could be that you have told your controller the
drive has more cylinders than it really has (>615). If so, then and bad sectors
could have been remapped to the last cylinders (thus causing the reset when
seeking the next cylinder). To avoid this conflict, BE SURE the controller 
knows the true limits of the drive. That is, 615 usable cylinders, with > 650
total cylinders. These extra tracks are for head parking purposes only. If a
seek is completed to one of these tracks, I believe you can do reads and writes
but, the next seek will force a drive recalibrate to be performed. 

Moral #2:
    Know the limits of the hardware you have.  Don't try to get more than 
    you paid for. Use what the manuals say, no more.


Good luck.....


-- 
Tim Margeson (206)253-5240
PO Box 3500  d/s C1-937                          @@   'Who said that?'  
Vancouver, WA. 98668
{amd..hplabs}cae780!tektronix!tekigm2!timothym (this changes daily)