Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!decwrl!ucbvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!phoenix
From: phoenix@ms.uky.edu (R'ykandar Korra'ti)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: AIR drive failures seem to be common.
Summary: AIR brand drive failures; request feedback from other AIR drive owners
Keywords: AIRdrive, disk, disk drives, DF1:, bad writes, failure.
Message-ID: <11818@s.ms.uky.edu>
Date: 2 Jun 89 03:23:50 GMT
Reply-To: phoenix@ms.uky.edu (R'ykandar Korra'ti)
Organization: Toontown wouldn't take me.
Lines: 50


     Since I posted my message a little while ago about having problems with
my external drive (DF1:), an AIRdrive, I've had several letters from other
people who also have AIRdrives and have had continual problems with 
read/write errors cropping up at random. Here's the kind of thing I've been
having happen:

	1> format drive df1: name "Fubar"
	(drive formats floppy)
	1> DiskVerify df1:
	(diskette verifies as having no errors)
	1> copy df0: df1: all
	(DF0: contains a virtually full workbench floppy; copy completes
	 successfully)
	1> DiskVerify df1:
	(diskette verifies as having no errors)
	1> delete df1:#? all
	(files deleted)
	1> copy df0: df1: all
	(DF0: copies again)
	1> DiskVerify df1:
	(Diskette now has at least one error.)

	Sometimes, the diskette will verify once, and then not verify
as soon as it is written to. The error DiskVerify reports is #25, and it
will occur on either side of the floppy. (Obviously, more than one floppy
is in question here; the problem seems to be with the drive.) The error
will most often crop up around track 40, very often on track 40 itself.
(I suspect this is because track 40 is the most commonly written when
copying disk files, no?)
	Anyway, this is very annoying, and seems to be happening to a 
relatively large number of people. In my case, it seems to be not "will
the disk drive create an error on my diskette," but "when will the disk
drive create an error on my diskette?" Others report similar certainty.
	The question: are other AIR drive owners out there, and have you
been having similar problems? Personally, I'm ticked off; if this is as
common as it is appearing to be, then I'll be quite annoyed.
	The second question: as soon as I can get Draco to work, I'll
be putting together a diskette drive benchmark utility. I would like
suggestions for this utility (types of tests, etc.) These can be EMailed.
If there is interest, once I get this working, I'll send it to other
people and we can put together some sort of consensus result and find out
exactly how common a problem this is, and whether our problems are indeed
identical.
                                                      - R'ykandar.

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