Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!tektronix!tekig5!tekig4!brianr
From: brianr@tekig4.TEK.COM (Brian Rhodefer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: jh1 (bridgeboard harddisk problems)
Summary: Me too
Keywords: jh1 djmount bridgeboard dpformat
Message-ID: <3090@tekig4.TEK.COM>
Date: 10 Aug 88 03:48:56 GMT
References: <880@ozvax.GWD.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: brianr@tekig4.TEK.COM (Brian Rhodefer)
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.
Lines: 53

Last week,  I had almost exactly the same experience that Randy Hendry
has so calmly described:  inability to install and format an 80Mbyte
harddisk as JH0: on my Bridgeboard.  Same model drive, same model HD
controller.

I didn't post to the net at the time, partly because I haven't e-mailed
my thanks to the folks who replied to my LAST two questions, partly
because it took me TWO DAYS to get my amiga working again, but mostly
because I was afraid of what I'd say in my enraged state.  News that
Janus has claimed another victim, however, cannot be borne in silence.

My interpretation of the machine's behavior (and please, oh please
God let me be wrong) is that the `dpformat' software (which, I want
to point out, is intended SPECIFICALLY to format a hard disk),

(*>hysterical, outraged,  purple-faced-shrieking mode ON <*)

  CAN'T TOLERATE **ANY** FLAWS ON THE DRIVE!  IT DOESN'T
  MAP-OUT FLAWED TRACKS, it MAPS-OUT FLAWED DRIVES!!!!

Is this some sort of cruel bait-and-switch tactic?  Am I just
learning my lesson for not shelling out another grand for
an Amiga-side hard disk?

Even IBM & Microsoft, who still brazenly ship that abominable `Edlin'
editor with their MS-DOS, know how to supply a functional disk-formatter.


[attempt to return to civility:]

The requestor that popped up 40 minutes into the `dpformat' suggested
that I use `DISKDOCTOR' to un-corrupt the disk.  I did.  Diskdoctor
printed out a list of disk hard errors, and then advised that the
disk be re-formatted after saving any of its files.  Since JH0: was
blank, I proceeded to re-format, again with `dpformat'.
Forty (though it would've taken the Bridgeboard's 8088 only eight)
minutes later, the exact same requestor, and the exact same nonusable JH0:.

I don't know whether I've guessed at the correct solution, but what
I've done is to re-run `DISKDOCTOR', and then used the JH0: drive
without subsequently re-formatting it.  I'm hoping that DISKDOCTOR
did the equivalent of flaw-mapping.

Side note:  Gee, it would've been nice if C-A had provided
documentation to explain HOW to use `diskdoctor', particularly
when the built-in system requestors instruct people to use it.
Everyone, I suppose, is expected to become Registered Developers?
Why not include it in the system purchase price?


Still waving the Amiga flag, but not as enthusiastically,

Brian Rhodefer      ...!tektronix!tekig4!brianr