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G4BLT > ARCHIM 19.05.95 08:15l 45 Lines 2415 Bytes #999 (0) @ EU
BID : 53418_GB7WRG
Read: GUEST
Subj: Re: 540mb drives
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Sent: 950514/1407 51@G4BLT.GB7WRG.#19.GBR.EU [Wakefield IO93gp]
The 120Mb Maxtor drive in my A5000 died on Wednesday last, with what appears
to be a motor controller fault. I wasn't pleased, as it had shown reluctance
to spin up a couple of times, including the previous night, but it was late
and I decided to go to bed and sort it out the following day. Oh, was that a
bad decision or what? I am careful about making backups, but had lapsed for
3 days, thus losing most of the text I'd written for July RadCom! I'm still
rewriting it now...
Anyway, I popped into ***** Computers in Leeds that same day, as they sell
Acorn machines as well as Amigas and PCs and so on. Their hard drive prices
seemed pretty fair, and like Tony LZB I was wary of buying a 540Mb drive, so
decided to play safe and I bought a 425Mb Connor which formatted to 406Mb.
The price of around #150 incl. isn't as cheap as you can get mail order, but
they checked my old drive in case it was my machine that was duff, and were
able to guarantee that the drive would work ok with my Acorn machine, which
it appears to do. So, the drive was up and running less than 12 hours after
the old one failed to work, and I'm well satisfied in the circumstances.
Just to add to my stress level, the 210Mb Connor in GB7WRG went down on
Thursday, and we've only just got all the files (especially mail) safely
recovered and the thing back in commission. Drives are now so cheap that
it's probably worth having a second one just for backup. That leads me on...
How's this for an idea? Will it work? If I fit a second IDE (slave) drive,
(where does it go on an A5000 BTW; in the 2nd floppy drive bay?), format it
and have it as drive 5, set the machine to boot from drive 5 instead of 4,
and set the spindown timer on drive 4, will this do the trick? Ie drive 4
would be idle most of the time, thus not wearing the bearings out, and used
for backup, while drive 5 was the main workhorse.
It sounds ok in theory, but have I overlooked something? (I suggest using
drive 4 as the backup, as I understand that you can only set the spindown
timer on the first drive.
Comment/raspberries to ARCHIM please...
73 from Rick
+----------------+---------------------------+-------------------------+
| Richard Sterry | - Internet Email - | - Packet Radio - |
| Wakefield UK | richard@waveg.demon.co.uk | G4BLT@GB7WRG.#19.GBR.EU |
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