🚀 go-pugleaf

In message <5977ak$en7@samba.rahul.net> - Mustafa Soysal MS57
<mistik@rahul.net>17 Dec 1996 22:37:08 GMT writes:
>
>
>Subject says it all.  A 4GB disk turned into a 1GB disk.
>
>IBM doesn't know how to help.
>
>Drive manufacturer checked with a utility for the internal geometry
>information, that shows 4GB.  There isn't a problem as we have first
>suspected.
>
>On top of all this, it could destroy the replacement drive exactly the
>same way.

I'm not trying to be facetious here... but the best way to determine if it
is possibly your host adapter is to get somone who has the same adapter and
a known working drive to lend you the drive, install it, and see how it
comes up in your machine.

 - Jack


-------------------------*
| Jack Bowling             |
| jcbowling@mindlink.bc.ca |
*--------------------------*

Mustafa Soysal MS57 wrote:
> 
> Subject says it all.  A 4GB disk turned into a 1GB disk.
> 
> IBM doesn't know how to help.

Assuming it's a "new" disk:

1.  Did you low-level format using your host adapter's LLF utility?

2.  Do you have the correct device driver installed for your host
adapter, and is it correctly configured?

> Drive manufacturer checked with a utility for the internal geometry
> information, that shows 4GB.  There isn't a problem as we have first
> suspected.

I had a similar experience when I installed a Quantum 2Gb drive with an
Adaptec HA.  Low-level format cured the problem.

      -jc-

> 
> On top of all this, it could destroy the replacement drive exactly the
> same way.
> 
> --

In article <597n14$4qk@fountain.mindlink.net>,
Jack Bowling <jcbowling@mindlink.bc.ca> wrote:
>In message <5977ak$en7@samba.rahul.net> - Mustafa Soysal MS57
><mistik@rahul.net>17 Dec 1996 22:37:08 GMT writes:
>>
>>
>>Subject says it all.  A 4GB disk turned into a 1GB disk.
>>
>>IBM doesn't know how to help.
>>
>>Drive manufacturer checked with a utility for the internal geometry
>>information, that shows 4GB.  There isn't a problem as we have first
>>suspected.
>>
>>On top of all this, it could destroy the replacement drive exactly the
>>same way.
>
>I'm not trying to be facetious here... but the best way to determine if it
>is possibly your host adapter is to get somone who has the same adapter and
>a known working drive to lend you the drive, install it, and see how it
>comes up in your machine.
>
> - Jack

Thank you Jack.  I solved the problem the following way.

Adaptec pointed me out towards another low-level formatter they have,
scsifrmt.exe archive in their bbs/hardware location at their ftp site.

I booted into PCDOS and ran the utility.  It returned the drive to 4GB.

I can still lose the data with such incident, but the disk will come
back at least, and I won't have to swap ship a replacement each time
this happens (daily to every few days).

>
>
>-------------------------*
>| Jack Bowling             |
>| jcbowling@mindlink.bc.ca |
>*--------------------------*
>

In article <32B825A9.7591@als.ameritech.com>,
John Chase  <jchase@als.ameritech.com> wrote:
>Mustafa Soysal MS57 wrote:
>> 
>> Subject says it all.  A 4GB disk turned into a 1GB disk.
>> 
>> IBM doesn't know how to help.
>
>Assuming it's a "new" disk:

The drive had been in use for a few months in "4GB mode"....The root
directory had been thrashed by chkdsk several times.  It seems OS/2 is
destroying the partition information when it locks up, and chkdsk
looks in the wrong place for the root directory based on the new wrong
size, and adds more to the destruction.  SOmehow, adl.exe from adaptec
didn't bring it back.  Some investigation revealed that they also have
scsifrmt.exe, which did bring the disk back to 4GB.

>
>1.  Did you low-level format using your host adapter's LLF utility?
>
>2.  Do you have the correct device driver installed for your host
>adapter, and is it correctly configured?

Yes, there has been no change.  I had even checked the configuration again.

>
>> Drive manufacturer checked with a utility for the internal geometry
>> information, that shows 4GB.  There isn't a problem as we have first
>> suspected.
>
>I had a similar experience when I installed a Quantum 2Gb drive with an
>Adaptec HA.  Low-level format cured the problem.
>
>      -jc-

Thanks for your assistance.

Best Regards,

Mustafa Soysal


>
>> 
>> On top of all this, it could destroy the replacement drive exactly the
>> same way.
>> 
>> --

Mustafa Soysal MS57 <mistik@rahul.net> wrote:

>In article <597n14$4qk@fountain.mindlink.net>,
>Jack Bowling <jcbowling@mindlink.bc.ca> wrote:
>>In message <5977ak$en7@samba.rahul.net> - Mustafa Soysal MS57
>><mistik@rahul.net>17 Dec 1996 22:37:08 GMT writes:
>>>
>>>
>>>Subject says it all.  A 4GB disk turned into a 1GB disk.
>>>
>>>IBM doesn't know how to help.
>>>
>>>Drive manufacturer checked with a utility for the internal geometry
>>>information, that shows 4GB.  There isn't a problem as we have first
>>>suspected.
>>>
>>>On top of all this, it could destroy the replacement drive exactly the
>>>same way.
....
>this happens (daily to every few days).
>
Did you verify your partition entries? I had a similar problem
(partition table crashed every few days) with my new IBM-DORS-Disk and
could fix the problem. It was neither a problem of the controller nor
of the disk. I myself caused the problem by physically copying the
partition (c:) that is in front of the partition sector for the
extended partitions. I copied the partition from my old drive where
the partition was slightly larger than the new destination partition.
os/2 and dos still used the partition so as if it had the old size and
os/2 does not check partition limits during use and even not in its
chkdsk. So I destroyed the partition sector and some of the following
sectors (in the os/2 partition D:) every time, when sectors where used
at end of the partition.
I did not find a tool that tells about this inconsistency. Even
partition magic (partinfo) did not find anything wrong with the
partition. (If I copied the partition using partition magic it could
have corrected the problem but I used the dd-command from linux, which
told me that the target file (=partition) was smaller but I did not
see a possible problem in it).
When I found some recently produced data of my C: partition in the
partition sector I reformatted (logical) my c-partition and restored
the c: files from a tar-archive. From that time on the problem was
fixed. 
I 

Gruss
  Hanns-Peter
----
// Hanns-Peter Ermert, Berlin/Germany - ermert@berlin.snafu.de