Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!claris!wombat From: wombat@claris.com (Scott Lindsey) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Re: GS/OS SCSI questions Keywords: service, renunciate, jut, affair Message-ID: Date: 12 Jan 90 20:13:14 GMT References: Sender: wombat@claris.com Organization: Claris Corporation, Santa Clara, CA Lines: 51 In-reply-to: joseph@elbereth.rutgers.edu's message of 12 Jan 90 00:47:00 GMT Subversive: NORAD In article joseph@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Seymour Joseph) writes: > Last night, I was working on an AWGS database and had repeated > problems with the program corrupting data. I would add some records > to my database and then scroll back over them and to my suprise some > of the fields had "????????!?!?!?!?!?!?@?@?@?@?@?@?" and other > similar garbage in them. I saved the database under a new name (thank > god) and tried reloading it. All I got were 79 records with ERROR in > almost every field. > I called Claris tech support today. I spoke with Ellen who made an > alarming statement: > "Yes, we are having problems reported with some SCSI drives. There > are bugs in the current versions of the GS/OS SCSI manager that can > cause data corruption. We feel that it's not our problem, it's > Apple's They are working on a fix but we don't know when it will be > available." > She wasn't sure if my problem stemmed from that or not, but WOW that > is a frightening statement. > Can anyone from Apple comment on the stability and integrity of the > System 5.0.2 SCSI drivers and SCSI Manager? > Can anyone from Claris give me more insight as to what might be going > on with my database? I built it with version 1.0v2 and converted it > with the converter application you provided with the 1.1 version. As Dave said in the mail forwarded by Chris, there is a SCSI bug. I've yet to hear of it affecting anyone except those with 3rd party hard drives. (Just got mail from Dave saying that Apple doesn't know of any reason that it shouldn't affect Apple hard drives, though). Since the bug occurs when a WRITE occurs for data in 3 contiguous banks, I doubt that the SCSI bug is at fault (No promises though). Generally, what's been seen is corruption of the program when copying it resulting in an almost unusable copy on your hard drive. Standard questions: can you repeat the problem with that database? If it's corrupt to start with, all bets are off. If the problem is repeatable, does it happen if the program is run off of floppy? Was this the first time you'd used this database since a) converting it b) changing hard drives. We pounded on AWGS long enough that it's pretty solid and there's no straightforward answers to what bugs are left in there (c'mon, there's no such thing as an 800K program with *no* bugs! Especially not one coded in assembly.) Scott Lindsey | I dig iguana in their outer space duds Claris Corp. | saying, "Aren't you glad we only eat bugs?" ames!claris!wombat| DISCLAIMER: These are not the opinions of Claris, Apple, wombat@claris.com | StyleWare, the author, or anyone else living or Dead.