Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:27306 comp.sys.amiga.tech:3020 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cbmvax!jesup From: jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: Disk drive gronks Message-ID: <5620@cbmvax.UUCP> Date: 4 Jan 89 01:28:30 GMT References: Reply-To: jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup) Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA Lines: 26 In article armhold@topaz.rutgers.edu (George Armhold) writes: >Does anyone know why sometimes when booting up, the system seems to >have some kind of problem with the disk drive? What I mean is when >loading Workbench, the drive knocks 3 or 4 times for every time that >it should knock only once. This causes it to take about 4-5 times longer to >boot up. Then disk activity is usually screwed up for the entire >session- it's especially evident when opening disks from the >Workbench ("gronk gronk gronk gronk etc..." instead of "gronk gronk >- window's open"). I suspect marginal disks, or disks which have some 'float'. It sounds like it's retrying every read. Buy a few "good" disks (non-supercheap), and see if it happens to them. Try removing and reinserting the disk (if it's a centering problem). Also, it might be a dirty or misaligned drive. When was the last time you cleaned your heads? Last idea (but would only affect startup): the drive may be validating, which will cause disk thrash. If you ^D out immediately, and the drive continues running (after giving you the prompt) then it's validating. Make sure there is at least 1 free block on the drive (and write-enabled) or it won't write out the new root/bitmap. -- Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup