H E L P ! ! !
From Jon Ripley (D5B)
I suppose you could also call this a
history of error detection!
I have a A3010 with a HD 3.5" drive
and a BBC Master with a DD 3.5" drive
(the Sony on that comes with the
compact).
If I format an ADFS L disc on the Arc,
if I verify it on the Master, either
various sectors on side 2 of the disc
seem corrupted (usually verifies but
with several retries) or entire tracks
cannot be found, or even both. If I
then verify the disc again, the errors
may vanish and other errors will be
detected on other sectors and/or
tracks, sometimes the disc will verify
with no errors. If I verify the disc
on the Arc no errors are detected and
the files can be loaded with no
problems.
By errors I mean tracks or sectors not
found or retries needed when loading
sectors (Data CRC errors).
If I format an ADFS L disc on the
Master, it verifies with no errors and
the Arc verifies it with no errors. I
can save files to the disc on the Arc
and the disc will still verify with no
errors on the Arc. When I use the disc
on the Master, any files saved on the
first side of the disc will load with
load with no errors but any files
saved on the second side of the disc
will have errors. Again these errors
are different for each time the disc
is used.
These errors do not change if I use a
different disc drive on the Master, I
have not tried a different disc drive
on the Arc as I do not have one but I
have had no problems with ADFS D, ADFS
E, ADFS F and DOS 1.44 formatted discs
although I have only used these discs
on my computer, I have exchanged ADFS
E and ADFS F discs with other people
in the past and no problems have been
detected.
I formatted a disc twice in a row on
the Master and save some files on the
second side of the disc, the errors
occurred. I also formatted a disc
twice in a row on the Arc, the disc
verified with errors on the Master and
these errors were still present after
I saved files on the disc.
The Step setting on the Arc was set to
3 ms (the actual step time is 4 ms on
the Arc), the equivalent FDrive
setting on the Master was set to 6 ms.
I reset the Master to a step time of
3ms (but it may have been 30 ms as I
am unsure which drive controller I
have in the Master).
At first this seemed to help and a
disc verified with no errors, another
disc, a backup (done on the Arc) of an
error free ADFS L disc written on the
Master, showed many errors and missing
tracks.
When a backup of the same disc was
made on the Master, no errors were
detected - (in this instance the Arc
had nothing to do with the disc).
I changed the Master and Arc to a step
time of 6 ms, again this seemed to
help but the same disc would verify
with anything from 0 retries to 30
tracks not found and 12 retries. (I
only verified the disc a few times but
each time the number and nature of the
errors changed.)
As the new step rate was affecting the
performance of the Arc I reset it to 3
ms.
I retried the Backup experiment and
there was no difference.
I formatted an ADFS E disc on the Arc,
there were no verify errors on the
Arc, I than verified it on the Master,
there were no errors on side 0 but on
side 2 there were - as usual - random
Data CRC errors and occasional tracks
or sectors not found. I wrote some
data to the disc on the Arc, it
verified error free again on the Arc,
I then verified it on the Master,
again on side 2 of the disc the errors
persisted.
I formatted an ADFS L disc on the Arc
and listened carefully to the drive
(the clunk, clunk sounds that all
drives make), after side 0 was
formatted the clunks slowed down when
side 2 was being formatted.
I formatted a 720k DOS disc on the Arc
but I could not determine whether the
drive slowed down when it was
formatting side 2 of the disc. I
verified this disc on the Master,
there were no errors on side 0 but
there were random data CRC errors on
side 2, although in the six times I
verified the disc there were
considerably less errors than I had
detected before on other disc formats.
I formatted an 80 track DFS disc on
the Master, it verified okay on the
Master. I saved some files to the disc
in the arc and verified that disc on
the Master, no disc errors were
detected. On the Master I saved a new
file over the one that the Arc had
saved, when I verified the disc again,
no errors occurred.
I formatted an 80 track DFS disc on
the Arc, it verified okay on the
master, I saved some files to the disc
on the Arc and the disc verified with
no errors on both computers. But when
I saved some files on side 2 of the
disc on the Master and verified the
disc again, random errors occurred.
(The DFS filer I used was Richard
Averill's ArcDFS filer version 1.00.)
I have yet to verify a disc formatted
on the Arc on my computer on the
computer of a friend who lives
locally, although I have had no
problems swapping discs in the past I
am unsure what the result will be but
I think that the disc will verify with
the same random errors.
I really am at the end of my tether, I
desperately need to solve this
problem, I am assuming that the
problem probably is with the drive on
the A3010 but it may be a problem with
the drive controller instead. I do not
believe that the problem lies with the
Master or the 2 disc drives that I
have used on the Master.
Please, please, if you can, help me!
One of the reasons is that I have a
lot of files on the Arc that I need to
transfer to the Master, these include,
my hard drive backup, my 8BS
submissions and several PD discs that
I am currently working on for Chris.
Also if you have a spare, fully
working drive for the A3010 (one for
the A3020 one would be fine - I
assume) and it is for sale then please
get in touch.
My address and phone number are:
Jon Ripley, BBC User Group,
15 Wexford Court, 14 Biddenden Close,
Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 7HX.
Telephone: (01323) 768421 (anytime)
From: K6X (Cluke)
Subject: Help Wanted
Is there a User Group for Amstrad
computers? A friend of mine has been
given one, and needs help with it. Ta
ever so.