From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Subject: Re: Still can't use a swapfile!!!
Keywords: microsoft, adaptec, scsi, windows, swapfile
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 17:20:56 GMT

In <14SEP199209444769@summa.tamu.edu> kbm8572@summa.tamu.edu (BRYAN MILLIGAN) writes:

>	Thanks to everyone for the suggestions on how to get my setup running;
>however, I had already tried most of them.  I DO load the ASPI driver first
>into conventional memory.  I DO have the VirtualHDIRQ=off in my system.ini
>file.  I DO have double buffering enabled.  I DO exlude the 16K ROM address
>of my SCSI adapter from use by EMM386.  I am using the latest versions of
>all the drivers.  I have to use ASPI or my JetScript driver won't load.
>The last time I tried to use a swap file I had to reformat the hard disk
>(major crash).  Why won't this work?  I paid more for major brand
>hardware to avoid things like this, but I'm getting no help from
>Adaptec, Microsoft, or Northgate (it's always a problem with the other
>guys hardware/software).  Is anyone from Microsoft or Adaptec out there?

I can't help, but I can tell you this much.  I have SIMILAR hardware
and have never had this problem.  Running on a TriStar EISA machine
with an AHA-1740A controller, a 1.2G Maxtor Panther drive, and
Microsoft Windows 3.1, I ran with virtual memory and didn't experience
any of these kinds of problems.  It ran somewhat slower (because it
apparently does something with VM even if you have lots of physical
memory), but it ran.  This was without the ASPI drivers with the HD
installed through the BIOS as Device 0.  I didn't have to do anything
special with VirtualHDIRQ, excluding ROM addresses, or anything else.
The only difference I see is that I am using QEMM (6.03?) for memory
management, instead of HIMEM and EMM386.

I have since turned off VM (because of the speed difference -- I have
lots of physical memory, so this isn't a problem) and installed the
ASPI drivers.  Using the ASPI drivers, SMARTDRV says that I no longer
need to use the /doube_buffer stuff, so I've removed that.  I haven't
tried to use VM since, but if you like I can see if it works with the
ASPI driver in there.  That might help eliminate that as the problem.

However, given the sort of problems you are having, what I would do is
this.  Strip your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT down to bare minimums to
run Windows.  If your disk will work without the ASPI driver, leave it
out.  Just get HIMEM loaded.  Don't even fool with SMARTDRV.  Go into
Windows and make sure you aren't set up for 32-bit disk access, and
then enable the VM.  If it crashes, then you're going to have to keep
trying to deal with the hardware folks.  If not, start adding stuff
back, one bit at a time, and then run like that for a while.  This is
really the only way I can think of to try to narrow down where the
problem is (I'd personally suspect something with the way EMM386 is
working, myself, although the only time I've ever heard of disks
getting trashed is when 32-bit access is enabled for a drive that
doesn't support it properly).  Until you can narrow it down, you're
going ot have a lot of trouble getting the various companies to put
resources onto getting it fixed.

>	I'm desparate and tired of restoring my hard drives. 

Yeah, I can understand why you would be.  Unfortunately, the only way
to find the problem is probably going to involve running the risk of
repeatedly trashing your machine for a while until you find the guilty
component (either HW or SW).  

The other option, of course, is to simply not use VM.  I find that my
machine runs a lot better without it.  If you have sufficient physical
memory, I'd just turn it off.

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.