Re: Fluke 9100 hard disk write errors

> I turned on the disk error reporting from the service disk, and when i get
> the write error now, it shows the address as 00000001 so its the very first
> write it is failing on each time..
>
> Bearing in mind the drive still appears to format ok, and that i had no
> previous problems with it, do you think this write error is the drive, or
> the controller, or the software mis reporting it?
>
Not a good sign. Bad drive or SCSI->MFM adaptor. The error reporting
being turned on is key, the format utility itself ignores most other
errors except a bad sector 0.

> any help appreciated, or i'm going to be reduced to manually loading the
> system software from floppy disks everytime i want to use the damn thing,
> which will be a real pain as i do use the 9100 almost on a daily basis.
>
Those Miniscribe drives are lucky they spin up at all anymore. Most
likely its the drive. I have a pile of bad MFM drives from 9100's -
the Seagates all suffer from stiction, the Miniscribes media starts
failing (or the platter motor can't maintain accurate speed anymore)...

SInce you've already upgraded to the version 5.0 ROMs, get a used SCSI
drive off eBay and replace it. Plugs right into the SCSI controller you
already have, just remove the SCSI->MFM adaptor mounted on the drive
cage. Much simpler design and one fewer point of failure.

Note that if you plan on using the Editor (with a keyboard/monitor)
you'll need to stick below somewhere around a 400MB drive. Theres a
rollover bug where the free-space calculation is not accurate with
larger disks. I believe the largest drive I have in any of my 9100's
from Fluke is 320MB. I usually try and get one of the 1/2" height
Quantums (like a LPS series), eBay usually has a selection of cheap
pulls from old Macs.

I do have a good used Miniscribe or two if anyone needs an "original"
setup. No warranty of course, but its not DOA.

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Received on Sat Dec 30 14:50:15 2006