Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!rutgers!mcnc!rti!bcw
From: bcw@rti.UUCP (Bruce Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec.micro
Subject: Re: Problem with Rainbow hard drive/controller ?
Summary: Cable problems?
Message-ID: <3386@rti.UUCP>
Date: 4 Jan 90 05:43:16 GMT
References: <35667@cornell.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, RTP, NC
Lines: 35

In article <35667@cornell.UUCP>, martin@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Bill Martin) writes:
> The hard drive made a long series of "head seek" sounds before
> the terminal displayed a could-not-load-operating-system sort of message.
> The Winchester diagostics said that either the controller card
> or the drive itself was bad (failing in subtest 2 on the head seek
> test).  Powering the system on and off didn't seem to correct
> the problem.  I then ran full system diagnostics (main memory, screen,
> floppies, etc.) with no errors reported.  Strangely, the system
> would then boot off of the hard disk with no problems after I ran
> the diagnostics.

I would tend to agree with the people at Suitable Solutions.  This is
probably either a drive problem or a cable problem.  Controllers rarely
go bad (though that's not impossible either...).  We have had lots of
hard drive problems with our Rainbow ... lots of ST225's gone bad, plus
a bad hard drive cable at one point.  All of these can have similar
symptoms (we verified that the ST225's had gone bad by trying them out
on a PC, so we know that *both* our drives *and* our cable have gone
bad independently on different occasions).

I'd try replacing the cable to the hard drive, if you can find a
replacement.  Around here DEC will replace it for a suitably outrageous
price (maybe around $100 as I recall...).  Might be worth it as insurance.
You might also try running the drive on a PC, if you can stand backing
it up and reformatting it;  you might find that the PC has problems with
it too.

Our experience with Seagate 225's is VERY bad.  For a while our yearly
mortality rate for several machines was running at nearly 200% -- having
to replace each 225 in each machine about every 6 months.  At the moment
we are running the Rainbow with 251's without any problems (over a year
now), although I think I will probably never really trust a Seagate drive
again.

							Bruce C. Wright