hard disk errors

[Lawrence Harris]

In article <219 at ablnc.ATT.COM> jrs2 at ablnc.ATT.COM (J.R. Smithson) writes:

->HELP! I've had my XENIX System V running on my IBM PC clone running
->for 2 months. In that time I've had 3 separate occasions of bad
->blocks on the hard disk. I'm using a Seagate ST225 (20Mb, 78ms)
->with a DTC 5150BX controller.

I have not experienced any such problems.  I am running a IBM PC/AT with
two full height Seagate 20Mb drives.  The system as a whole has been running
for over two years with only minor problems.

->1. Does turning off the power cause the heads on the hard disk to land
->   on the platter and create bad tracks?

I am using the full height Seagete 20 meg drives and they park there heads
automatically (you can here them go THUNK when you shut the power off).

I do leave the power on all the time, I wore out a CDC 20 meg drive after
two years continuous operation.  But, I understand there were reliablility
problems with this drive anyhow.

->2. If the above is true, does XENIX have a utility to park the heads 
->   over a safe zone before power off?	/etc/haltsys???

I am running IBM XENIX 2.0 (Microsoft XENIX V) and whenever you issue the
haltsys command it does park the heads automatically.

->I'd leave the machine powered up all the time but it does throw out a bit
->of RF interference for my TV.

You could try some passing all the external cables though some ferrite beads
to try and chock :-) off the rf noise.  This is not one of my strong points
though and maybe somebody else could comment on how to reduce rf interference.

->Please post replies to this group as I'm sure all are interested.
->
->	Jim Smithson {ihnp4}!ablnc!jrs2 (305)834-5439
-- 
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