Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrwic!menno!bob
From: bob@menno.UUCP (Robert Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Hard drive problem
Keywords: Seagate, boot, disk
Message-ID: <267@menno.UUCP>
Date: 16 Feb 90 22:32:34 GMT
Organization: Bethel College, N. Newton, KS
Lines: 22

I'm in charge of a small microcomputer lab (10 Franklin PC8000's with 
Seagate 225 hard drives attached).  Lately about half of our machines
have been exhibiting unusual behavior:  they have lost their ability to
boot.  We've run them for months without problems and now some refuse to
boot.  First fix attempt: reload the hidden system files.  Sometimes
this helps, sometimes it doesn't.  Second fix: reformat and reload the
software.  A Real Pain, but that's what undergraduate employees are 
for :-).  This usually doesn't change the situation much.  However, just
after the format, when only the system is loaded, it will boot fine.
After reloading all our software, nothing.  Final attempt:  Low-level
format.  Not even our employees are very willing to try this.  It
sometimes has to be done twice before things work again.  

So my questions are these:  what is wrong?  have we been victimized by a
virus of some sort?  Or should we just live with it and pay our
employees more?

-- 
Robert Schwartz				...texbell!ncrwic!menno!bob
Department of Computer Science          
Bethel College				bob@bethelks.edu
N. Newton, KS 67117