From: jliukkon@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Juha-Matti Liukkonen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: MAJOR HELP: IDE drive trashed (w/Stacker)
Date: 12 Sep 92 21:20:17 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

Hello, fellow netters.

I ran into something rather odd, and was hoping that maybe one of You
could enlighten me a bit about the subject.

First, my machine is a self-made 386SX, 25 MHz, 32K CPU cache.  AMI BIOS
4/90 (?); cache can be set off/on/post-write, and the bus speed to be
CPUCLK/6 (= 8 1/3 MHz) or CPUCLK/4 (12.5 MHz).  4x1 Mb SIMM.  No-name
multi-I/O + IDE ctrlr, Trident 8900C 3.01 1 Mb, Soundblaster 1.5, and
that's about it. Oh, and of course the culprit: IDE-HD Conner CP3044; 42
Mb, 25 ms, drive type 17 (translating).

On the software side, I run DOS 5, himem 2.78, UMB_DRVR 5.22 + HIMEM
2.78 (or occasionally QEMM 6.00), Stacker 2.0, 4DOS 4.01, and of course
Windows 3.1. 

Now on the other day we put together a computer for a friend of mine,
and we had to test it's floppy drive (it was faulty). We tested it on my
computer; later that night (around 12:30 am) I came back home and bolted
my own machine together. I changed the rigged HD and floppy drive leads
to new ones we got with the purchase of the other 'puter that day.

When I booted the thingy, it first announced "stacker.com cheksum
error". Right. I rebooted, and rebooted, and rebooted: I got about ten
different error messages from different pieces of boot-up software.
Finally, after 30 minutes, the thing booted up properly. I was, of
course, dead worried.

Now I ran the Stacker check program, scheck. No errors. CHKDSK? Yea.
Plenty of dismembered sectors floating around. OK, fix 'em. Now, I have
50% of my files truncated to 4096 bytes. Thanks.

Well, luckily I had 95% of the stuff backed up.  I reformatted the
drive, thought: "what the hell, I might as well re-partition this drive"
(it's been in two chunks, since it was last formatted when DOS 3.3 was
state of the art...) So I did.  Then copy the system disk (I have found
it handy to copy my /bin, /dev & /etc dirs to a proper boot up &
recovery disk - the system can be recreated with single xcopy command -
but I never thought I would have to use it :( Good thing I had it,
though!) and install Stacker.  I left 8 Mb un-stacked for Windows
swapping. And then ARJ x -v a:backup.

Now, all was OK until I began to run things. Windows would say read
errors. I run SDEFRAG: "critical: read error". Stacvol trashed.

OK. I run Norton's calibrate - and had this bright idea to try it while
using the higher bus speed. Rigorous pattern testing on (80 patterns,
10x format... Heavy stuff!) Right on! The disk shows _average_ seek of
18.83 ms, and that's pretty fast for a _25_ ms disk, IMO! Now I
installed everything (as before), and the thing seems to run flawlessly.
After a day, I got a read error from Windows, and thought that maybe
this isn't too good for the poor old disk. So, I switch back to the 8
1/3 MHz bus, run calibrate (just in case the speed affects the format),
and re-install everything. (I've already learned to do this quite
quickly...)

Now, everything works fine if I use plain DOS. If I install Stacker, it
will crash on a read error (the same thing that happened in the first
place) when there's >5 Mb of stuff on the disk. OK, I try _without_
Stacker. On plain DOS setup, everything's fine: install Windows, use it
for half an hour, and the disk is totally screwed.

I've done the last stage (on the low bus speed) for five times now,
without a cache and experimenting with QEMM/UMB_DRVR/just HIMEM/
nothing, DOS 5/4DOS ... I've been most careful, but obviously no matter
what I do, after a couple of runs in Windows, the disk is scrap. FATs
probably 100% f*cked. Norton's Disk Doctor, PC-Tools DiskFix, even
CHKDSK do _not_ find _anything_ wrong with the disk. The file structure
is just ... a mess.

Needless to say, no test software can detect _any_ kind of faults in the
drive. I've checked and re-checked all the connections inside the
'puter. The only anomaly I find (and it might've been this way before, I
may have not noticed it) is that Norton's Disk Doctor goes pretty fast
50% of the disk, but then slows to about 1/5 speed for the rest of the
disk (estimate about 1 min until it gets to halfway, then it increases
to 5 min...)

So. What gives? I'm in a flu, bad mood, and this is my only hard disk at
the moment. I'm beginning to think that somehow the drive's controller
logic may be faulty, but then, I'm no engineer. I would _really_
appreciate any and all info about how to correct this situation!

Please, e-mail to jliukkon@cc.helsinki.fi, thanks!


-- 
               Juha Liukkonen, aka jliukkon@cc.helsinki.fi
       University of Helsinki, Dept. of Paranormal Investigations
           "Trust me, I know what I'm doing." - Sledge Hammer
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware