Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!silver!hanj
From: hanj@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (Jining Han)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Harddisk Problem
Message-ID: <26590@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 26 Sep 89 05:19:28 GMT
Reply-To: hanj@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (Jining Han)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington
Lines: 39


A friend's harddisk is on the verge of breakdown: it's a 30 mb Seagate
(he could not tell me the model over the phone) on an XT-clone.  It
started with a lot of bad sectors.  Then we reformatted it some months
ago and virtually got rid of the bad sectors.  But since then the
computer gets stuck every time "copy" command is used.  I suspected that
something is wrong with the RAM, but since "xcopy" works fine, we just
ignore the "copy".

Two months ago, his computer could not recognize the harddisk any more. 
First thing I thought of was bad connection, so I asked him to open the
case and re-plug everything--that made him happy.

But some days ago, things became really bad.  "Invalid drive specification"
became more and more frequent.  Sick of opening the case, he unscrewed the
harddisk and made it "external," so that whenever it's not recognized, he
gives the harddisk a little knock or shake to wake it up, as he is very sure
that some internal connection is making all the trouble.  

Though he can still use or abuse the harddisk, he is desperately looking
for a way out of this agony and sense of insecurity.  A new disk seems
to be the easiest way out.  Yet some questions still remain:

1. Is there any connection between the harddisk breakdown and the "copy"
   command not being usable?  Is there any potential cause for another
   breakdown if a new one is installed?

2. Assuming that it's safe to install a new one, does he need to change the
   controller?  This question arises because he no longer likes 30 mb disks.
   What will his controller do to a new 20 mb harddisk (turning it into a
   30 mb)?

Please do not tell him to throw away the whole computer.  It's only two 
years young.

Your help is very much appreciated.

Jining Han