1237cedd0a4a
tech



Hello Wayne - 

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WC> No bearing failures herebut ten years max so far. 

10 years is a good long time too. :-) 

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CA>> With IDE and EIDE it's difficult to say "no bad sectors"
CA>> because the onboard hardware for the drive hides bad
CA>> sectors by using replacement reserve sectors that they
CA>> _all_ have available. We really don't know anymore when we
CA>> try to put a file at the start of a drive that it
CA>> physically _is_ at the start since all hard drives
CA>> 'translate' for the OS and don't offer exact locations
CA>> anymore. 

WC> I thought one required a utility supplied by the
WC> manufacturer to remap the drive hiding bad sectors and
WC> utilizing spares? 

Nope it's automatic. Haven't you noticed there are no stickers
showing 'bad sectors' attached to hard drives anymore? 

WC> I know W.D. has such a utility, I have it here. I think
WC> W.D. now supplies this with the drive but back in 97 I had
WC> to pull it off the web site. 

That utility would be more of a last resort to block out bad
sectors when the reserve sectors are all used up. 

WC>> Quantum drive in this box is OK but does have bad sectors,
WC>> no idea if original owner moved the box while the drive
WC>> was oerating or whapped the box upside the head in
WC>> exasperation over the ribbon cable induced Windows crashes. 

CA>> I would guess the CPU was 'slugged' several times. I've
CA>> seen it happen so often I just take that for granted now. 

WC> Neither of the previous owners are technically savy so I
WC> can easily imagine that to be the case or even a bad jar
WC> when physically moving an operating box. 

Considering that a sales manager in a computer store would slug
one I think just about anyone would. 

CA>> The sales manager at INACOMP once punched the monitor
CA>> square in the middle of the screen and drove it all the
CA>> way back to the wall. I was surprised it didn't break. :-) 

CA>> When I worked as a PC consultant I maintained several
CA>> months of daily reports on employee efficiency (detailed)
CA>> and the telephone system for 4-6 months plus training
CA>> texts and other graphs and charts all on one 110 meg hard
CA>> drive. :-) 

WC> I recall DOS based data base programs that were quite
WC> efficient. 

Yes they are. This system used software written by me and a few
commercial apps like LOTUS and TELIX (to connect to the PBX for
programming etc.).

I did write a telecom app to do Motorola S-code uploads and
downloads then discovered the code in the PBX was fubar'd and
couldn't do proper uploading after talking to one of the PBX
company programmers who admitted that it was never fixed and
no one ever could get it to work properly. I was trying to do
backups of the programming for the telephone system at the time.

>
>        ,                          ,
>      o/      Charles.Angelich      \o       ,
>       __o/
>     / >          USA, MI           < \   __\__
 

___ * ATP/16bit 2.31 * 
... DOS the Ghost in the Machine! http://www.undercoverdesign.com/dosghost/

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