Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-picayune.mit.edu!athena.mit.edu!mmshah
From: mmshah@athena.mit.edu (Milan M Shah)
Subject: Re: IDE hard drive pauses... sometimes.
Message-ID: <1991Jun14.144313.3504@athena.mit.edu>
Sender: news@athena.mit.edu (News system)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
References: <1991Jun13.193634.24680@sarah.albany.edu>
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 91 14:43:13 GMT
Lines: 32

In article <1991Jun13.193634.24680@sarah.albany.edu> brk102@leah.albany.edu (Brian King) writes:
>I have an IDE hard drive, a Toshiba 100MB (can't remember the model
>number), that seems to pause sometimes, for around 15 seconds, and
>then continues.  When I say pause, I mean that it causes my whole
>system to completely stop whatever it is doing. The drive light stays
>on for about 10 seconds, and then goes off for the remainder of the
>time, until the system recovers. 
>...
>Relevant system information:
>   386/25 Mhz, 64k cache, 4 megs RAM
>   AMI BIOS - 4/89
>
>-Brian King  (brk102@leah.albany.edu)
>

I have the exact same problem with a completely different setup! I have a
20MHz Mylex MB machine with 64K cache, a Conner 3104, and Phoenix BIOS
v 1.10.10 (copyrighted 1985-1989). Problem is not software specific: so far,
it has happened while I am in Windows (which is most of the time), while I
was using MicroEmacs (from plain old DOS), while I was using a shareware DOS
shell, and while using FoxBase. I thought the drive was bad, and was almost
ready to send it back to the vendor. Anyone know what the problem might be?

It seems that my Conner and Brian's Toshiba have a cache on the drive. Could
it be that the cache is just being flushed?

Thanks!

Milan
.


