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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!alberta!sask!skatter!kuo
From: kuo@skatter.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Hard Drive dir problem
Message-ID: <330@skatter.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-Jul-87 23:52:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: skatter.330
Posted: Thu Jul  9 23:52:53 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 12-Jul-87 10:34:02 EDT
References: <3774@garfield.UUCP>
Organization: Accelerator Lab, Saskatoon, Sask.
Lines: 34
Keywords: flashing lights
Summary: Its okay

In article <3774@garfield.UUCP>, robert4@garfield.UUCP writes:
> Has anyone else had this problem, or does anyone know of a fix or patch (if
> that's what's needed) ?
>  
> 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 have asked
> some friends (with different PCs and/or hard drives) about this and some have
> and others have not had a similar experience.
>  

I think it is okay. My 20MB disk does the same after a cold boot or after
access by Norton Utils etc. I think what happens is at that particular time,
the FAT info is not in core, so the system is reading from the disk to see
how much space is used up/free. Some programs might wipe out this part of
memory so a re-read is needed. I am running PC-DOS 3.1 (8-)


... Peter/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Kuo                   | Bitnet (VMS)  : KUO@SASK
Accelerator Laboratory      |
(a.k.a. The Beam Warehouse) | uucp   (Unix) : !alberta\
Univ. of Saskatchewan       |                 !ihnp4  -- !sask!skatter!kuo
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan     |                 !utcsri /
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Disclaimer: I don't know what I am saying, so don't quote me on
	    anything! And I only speak for myself.