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Conference hydra::amiga_v1

Title:	AMIGA NOTES
Notice:	Join us in the NEW conference - HYDRA::AMIGA_V2
Moderator:	HYDRA::MOORE

Created:	Sat Apr 26 1986
Last Modified:	Wed Feb 05 1992
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	5378
Total number of notes:	38326

2496.0. "AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!" by NZOV01::MCKENZIE (Help STOP the greenhouse effect!) Sat Apr 22 1989 08:36

    Greetings all - got a weird problem that I'd appreciate a little
    help on....
    
    I recently purchased (like in the last 2 months) an external 3 1/4
    drive from the local store...I'm not really sure what is going on
    but ive started having problems with some disks used in this drive...
    I am writing some applications and have set up the startup-sequence
    to automatically load the workbench commands from my project disk.
    This is fine, but when the
    workbench is loaded and I try to access the disk in drive 1 by using
    the mouse i am told the disk is "not a dos disk" the only way I
    can fix this is to re-install the disk - this works fine until
    the next time I try to boot up. if I take the disk out of the drive
    and then re-insert it - no problem....I was told that I may have
    disks infected with the Byte bandit - so I spent 2 hours systematically
    checking each and every disk for both the SCA and Byte bandit virus
    - all clean according to VirusX...
    
    I have physically cleaned the heads on both drives and when I load
    my standard workbench disk with another disk (such as a terminal emulator)
    works fine....I even copied all files to another disk and re-formatted
    the original - then copied the files back - no luck using either
    the copy or the re-built original disks. I suspect one of two probems:
    
    o The disk heads are slightly out of alignment
    o Ive got a few crappy disks...
    
    This is very frustrating and any advice anyone could give me would
    be appreciated...
    
    I am sorely tempted to place 1 pound of plastique on the entire
    system and blow it to kingdom come at the moment...
    
    Phil (forever bashing head on wall over one amiga problem or another
    - at least thats how it seems these days)

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
2496.1		LEDS::ACCIARDI		`Mon Apr 24 1989 00:07`	28
	I have a few suggestions based on three years of Amiga usage... 1. Buy Sony floppys. 2. Buy Sony floppys. 3. Buy Sony floppys. 4. Check out the drive cable. The first three are based on experience with Maxell, BASF and a few other brands that periodically crap out. Suggestion 4 is based on a wierd experience with my original Amiga 1000 and it's 1010 external floppy. I would get random 'not a dos disk' messages from disks that would work fine in DF0. After much hair pulling, I discovered that the drive cable, at the point where it entered the floppy housing, was frayed. The shield braid would sporadically touch the drive adaptor board ground, making an intermittant connection. The mere insertion of a disk was enough to farble things up on occasion. Phil, you didn't mention what brand of external drive you had. It's probably hard to find fault with the drive mechanism itself, since these are all pretty standard and very reliable. However, shoddy workmanship in the cabling or adaptor board might be the problem. It's worth opening it up and looking for frayed or broken wires. Ed.
2496.2	Alignment problems the most likely	SHRARA::BAKER	Budget Time-Here comes the Bribe, Her come...	`Mon Apr 24 1989 00:11`	10
	Its a good chance for the first guess. Would the dealer you purchased the drive off loan you another to test this theory out. Maybe you can take your machine in to them? If the brand of media is reputable, then ask whether the disks are from the same box/batch or dealer. If there isnt a correlation, look harder at the possibility of an alignment problem. John
2496.3		LEDS::ACCIARDI		`Mon Apr 24 1989 00:19`	6
	Whoops! After re-reading .0 I think I'm probably all wet about frayed cables etc. Ed.
2496.4		NZOV01::MCKENZIE	Help STOP the greenhouse effect!	`Mon Apr 24 1989 00:41`	10
	.1 Ed - I'll check it out just the same.... it just seems funny - when I load the workbench and a disk in df1: I cant access DF1: - when I remove and re-insert disk in df1: no problem....also - only happens with some disks.... I'll try what you suggested - but it looks more and more like I've been sold crappy disks...
2496.5	Why not just exchange the drive?	MSBIS2::LANDINGHAM	Guy M.,BXB1-1/F11,293-5297	`Mon Apr 24 1989 10:18`	2
	Since you've only had the drive for about days, my first impulse would be to return it to the dealer for exchange.
2496.6	hmmmm...	NZOV01::MCKENZIE	Help STOP the greenhouse effect!	`Tue Apr 25 1989 17:17`	12
	re .5 - Hi Guy Yeah...if it was having the same problems with ALL disks I'd be concerned - as its only on the SAME group of disks each time.... gonna have another word with the dealer - for those hardware gurus out there - what are the chances that this problem could be related to the computer itself and not the disk drive???? Cheers Phil
2496.7	I know this guy called Guido.....	NZOV01::MCKENZIE	Diehard the hunter	`Wed Jun 21 1989 01:14`	20
	Whoops - meant to put the anser to the problem here MONTHS ago.... now how did that happen? never mind Neither the disks nor the drive was responsible - the problem was The "Byte Warrior" virus - I used the virus killer Ive got to zap this nasty and everything works fine now.... I would like be able to write a program which draws enough current into an amiga to blow the screen apart...then send it as part of a game to the swine that wrote this little nasty...compliments of his victim...;^) cheers & thanks to everyone who came forward with suggestions - Phil