Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ptsfa!ames!elroy!cit-vax!ucla-cs!wales From: wales@ucla-cs.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Hard Drive dir problem Message-ID: <7083@shemp.UCLA.EDU> Date: Wed, 8-Jul-87 16:02:08 EDT Article-I.D.: shemp.7083 Posted: Wed Jul 8 16:02:08 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 11-Jul-87 14:05:17 EDT References: <3774@garfield.UUCP> Sender: root@CS.UCLA.EDU Reply-To: wales@CS.UCLA.EDU (Rich Wales) Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Lines: 33 Keywords: flashing lights In article <3774@garfield.UUCP> robert4@garfield.UUCP writes: Whenever I (or a programme) access a directory for the first time after a cold boot (after loading dos and executing autoexec.bat, etc.) my hard drive access indicator light flashes rapidly and steadily for about 5-10 sec and then produces the results of the dir scan. This ONLY occurs the first time after I turn the system on OR when using a utility like PCTools (each time it checks the dir or a path). And this only seems to happen with DOS 3.2 (I was using 2.11 before this without the problem) and only on the hard drive. I see something similar on my XT clone running DOS 3.1 when I do a DIR on my 30-Mb disk. The first time I do a DIR after a reboot, I get a list of the files and the number of files. The system then accesses the drive madly for a few seconds before printing out the number of free bytes on the drive. I assume what is happening is that the system needs to check the free block info on the drive in order to tell how much free space there is. After this has been done once, the data is stored somewhere in the sys- tem, and presumably incrementally modified as files are created/deleted, so that subsequent DIR operations don't need to compute the amount of free space from scratch. -- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 213-825-5683 3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1596 // USA wales@CS.UCLA.EDU ...!(ucbvax,rutgers)!ucla-cs!wales "Sir, there is a multilegged creature crawling on your shoulder."