Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!prcrs!john
From: john@prcrs.UUCP (John C. Schettino Jr.)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Problems w/ Gateway 386 and Windows
Summary: rll (DTC) problem and ms windows
Message-ID: <624@prcrs.UUCP>
Date: 27 Feb 90 13:24:19 GMT
References: <42900062@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu>
Organization: PRC Realty Systems, McLean, VA
Lines: 36

In article <42900062@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu>, dkchen@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu writes:
> 
> 	Recently I bought a Gateway 386-20. It comes with
> 
> 		65 MB 28ms RLL HD divided into 3 logical drives 
> 		DTC 7287 HD/FD controller w/ disk cache
> 
> 	My question is, what machine type should I choose when installing
> 	Windows/386. I tried "Intel InBoard/386" and "Zenith". They all
> 	worked fine, except with the following problem. From time to time,
> 	I'll get error messages such as "Drive Not Ready Error Reading 
> 	Drive D:" or "Cannot Write Drive C:" while the HD led was on but
> 	the HD wasn't doing any work (I mean, it was very quiet).Then I can 
> 	choose from "ABORT, RETRY, or IGNORE". And the problem always went away 
> 	when I chose to RETRY. Sometimes I have to ERTRY more than once to
[deleted]

	I had a similar problem with a 286 clone from Tri-Star, with a DTC
RLL controller, and when I called it in, they said that some users had
problems w/the DTC and windows. It may be something to do with the on-board
hard disk cache. Tri-Star swapped out the DTC for a western digital RLL
controller (very promptly, and at no charge) and everything works fine
now! I mailed out this behavior on some local bbs systems, including a
mail-order house. The sysop from this place (who sells the DTC controller)
said that he has several of these controllers in the field and that
they work fine, so you may just have a leamon controller. Anyway, see
if gateway will swap out the DTC for another brand or a another board, as
that board is having "timeout" problems. (Another possibility is that the
hard disk itself is not able to work as an RLL drive (I think that RLL
requires or drives the low-level controller "harder/faster" than MFM, and
that some MFM drive interface controller can't keep up.) This should be
GATEWAY'S problem, not yours.

Good Luck,

John Schettino			uunet!prcrs!john