Disk Errors
Corey Betka
In article <348C0FBB...@mail.wm.edu>, knw...@mail.wm.edu says...
>
>I wanted to know if anyone else was having problems with floppy disks in
>NT. Run a lab with NT 4.0 sp3 but have also had the same problem (to a
>lesser extent) when our labs were 3.51. A lot of our students are
>running into various problems with their disks, they may lose a single
>file due to corruption or several files at the same time and sometimes
>the entire disk cannot be read in NT. Usually when a disk cannot be
>read by NT there is a bad disk sector or some other hardware error but
>the disk can be read in DOS and copying the contents to a new disk fixes
>the problem. Sometimes, however, the disk can't be read in either NT or
>DOS and its entire contents are lost. This is happening far more often
>than can be expected for normal disk corruption and we have found no
>problems with the drives or the machines themselves. Our machines show
>no signs of a virus and this happens in several different applications
>(usually Eudora and Word 97, our most used applications). Microsoft
>claims that it is either normal problems with wear and tear on disks or
>user error. We have posted signs on each machine telling students of
>proper disk treatment and the disk are still pouring in. I believe the
>problem is on save but the students don't usually notice it until they
>try to read from the disk again. I cannot replicate the error on demand
>but have lost one of my own disks.
Yes, we are also seeing this in our student labs at U of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign in Housing. All of our machines are NT 4.0 SP3 installed with
the $OEM$ method of unattended installation. We run a variety of apps off
regional apps servers. We see this problem randomly, with disks getting
corrupted being unreadable on NT systems, but perfectly readable on DOS or 95
systems. We have also been unable to find a good explanation for this problem.
My only idea is that the floppy's FAT is not gettting updated before removal,
due to the agressive caching NT does.
BTW, your mass crossposting to a majority of the microsoft.public.windowsnt
hierarchy is more likely to get your message ignored than responded to.
Followups set to the .apps and .misc
Corey Betka
be...@uiuc.edu
Special Projects Staff/Site Manager
Residential Student Computing
University of Illinois/Housing
Tim Hill
If you really can get hold of a floppy which reliably will not work on NT
but reads on WIn95 (on different machines) then hang on to it and contact
MS. I've certainly never heard of corruption caused by the NT write-behind
cache. Does this occur on different h/w platforms?
--
Tim Hill -- Windows NT MVP
Kristin Wallio wrote in message <348C0FBB...@mail.wm.edu>...
>I wanted to know if anyone else was having problems with floppy disks in
>NT. Run a lab with NT 4.0 sp3 but have also had the same problem (to a
>lesser extent) when our labs were 3.51. A lot of our students are
>running into various problems with their disks, they may lose a single
>file due to corruption or several files at the same time and sometimes
>the entire disk cannot be read in NT. Usually when a disk cannot be
>read by NT there is a bad disk sector or some other hardware error but
>the disk can be read in DOS and copying the contents to a new disk fixes
>the problem. Sometimes, however, the disk can't be read in either NT or
>DOS and its entire contents are lost. This is happening far more often
>than can be expected for normal disk corruption and we have found no
>problems with the drives or the machines themselves. Our machines show
>no signs of a virus and this happens in several different applications
>(usually Eudora and Word 97, our most used applications). Microsoft
>claims that it is either normal problems with wear and tear on disks or
>user error. We have posted signs on each machine telling students of
>proper disk treatment and the disk are still pouring in. I believe the
>problem is on save but the students don't usually notice it until they
>try to read from the disk again. I cannot replicate the error on demand
>but have lost one of my own disks.
>I know this is long but any ideas or suggestions are appreciated.
>Thanks,
>Kristin Wallio
>Computer Center
>College of William & Mary
>knw...@mail.wm.edu
>
Kristin Wallio
I have tons of floppies that work in DOS but not NT (haven't tried them in
Win95). I have contacted MS tech support on several occassions and they have
it as an open issue but tell me that it is simply user error. The error
occurs on our Gateways as well as Wins and some computers we had built by a
company called Campus Computing, so yes it occurs across many h/w platforms.
Kristin
Tim Hill
I'm still not clear. Are you saying you have a floppy disk, with files on
it, which can be read under Win95 and not under NT? The same files? w/o
reformatting? If that's the case, I don't see how MS can assign it as finger
trouble or hardware -- it must be an NT bug.
--
Tim Hill -- Windows NT MVP
Kristin Wallio wrote in message <348C4E21...@mail.wm.edu>...
Kristin Wallio
I have not tried to look at these disks under 95. If I take one of the "bad"
disks (disks that can't be read in NT) and put it into an NT machine it will
give one of 3 errors: 1) a:\ is not accessible No ID address mark was found on
the floppy disk, 2) a:\ is not accessible Data error (cyclic redundancy check),
or 3) a:\ is not accessible The volume does not contain a recognized file
system. The first two often occur when there is a bad sector on the disk. All
three types of disks can be read on a standard DOS machine. The files are all
intact and can be opened and run. If we make a diskcopy of the disks in DOS,
the new disk can be read in NT just fine. If the disk itself can be read in NT
and only one file or a couple of files are corrupt, usually those files are gone
for good although sometimes the data can be retrieved through DOS editting.
With disks that cannot be accessed, MS says that the disks were probably
mistreated and have hardware errors (sometimes they do, sometimes they don't,
sometimes they can be reformatted, in DOS, and used again). With file that are
corrupt, they say the programs they are using are causing the error, except of
course when they are using MS Word 97 and then they feel the user must be taking
the disk out too soon or doing something else weird.
TechMan
Krisitn,
I can't give you any ideas what is wrong, but i can say. I have 16 NT boxes
all running server or workstation 4 & sp3. Not one has ever had a problem
with this as far as i know. I suspect it is the floppy drives them selves.
or poor disks. what kind of disk are you using? (I use 3M only "Imation")
Kristin Wallio wrote in message <348C0FBB...@mail.wm.edu>...
>I wanted to know if anyone else was having problems with floppy disks in
>NT.
<snip>
>I know this is long but any ideas or suggestions are appreciated.
>Thanks,
>Kristin Wallio
>knw...@mail.wm.edu
>
Bruce Sanderson
Maybe I'm telling you what is obvious and you have already gone beyond
the following, but just in case it might help:
It is a common problem that disks can be read on one floppy drive but
not another. This is a problem with all removable media, but
particularly floppy disks. But, it sounds like you have a more than
usually severe problem.
It is very important to establish if the problem is specific to a drive
or the operating system. The only sure way to find that out for sure to
run different operating systems on the SAME PC, use the SAME drive and
see if the problem follows the operating system. I read your notes
carefully, but I didn't see any statement that you had actually tested
this.
Bad or marginal head alignment errors on a floppy disk drive will cause
read or write errors. When a floppy disk is "formatted" (not "Quick
Formatted"), the individual tracks and sectors are written. If the head
alignment and electronics are at one end of the specification tolerance
and you take that floppy to another drive that is near or at the other
extreme of the tolerance, you will have read or write errors, regardless
of operating system.
If you take a floppy to a "DOS PC" and can read or write it
successfully, then take it do a different PC that happens to be runing
NT and have a problem, this is most likely a tolerance problem between
the two drives involved, not the operating system.
When you use diskcopy, even if you copy back to the same floppy, the
target floppy is re-formatted, so you may now be able to read/write it
on drives that you could not before. As I understand it, part of the
design of the physical and electrical tolerances is to make writing
"more difficult" by using tighter tolerances for writting than reading.
So, you may be able to read and thus "recover data" from a floppy, but
not write (save) on the same floppy. Normal "writting" does not
re-format; the existing sectors are merely written over.
I realise that this information may be instructive but does not point at
a solution.
Some ideas:
1. configure some or all the PCs to dual boot DOS and NT. Then, when you
get a report of not being able to read or write under NT, boot to DOS
and see if the problem persist on the same PC (and floppy drive). It is
important to make sure that the floppy has not been "reformatted",
"diskcopy" to etc. in the mean time. If you can clearly show that the
problem is operating system specific and is repeatable, then you have
specific ammunition to pursue the problem with MS.
2. there may be one or a few "marginal" floppy drives in your lab or
perhaps in other labs on campus. See if you can get a history of which
PCs are used to "format" (or diskcopy) or write to the "problem" disks.
Hopefully, this will point to one or a few PCs (and associated floppy
drives) that are mainly implicated in the problem. You can then have
these problem drives replaced or repaired.
With hundreds and possibly thousands of students moving thousands of
floppy disks from PC to PC, it may seem impossible get this information,
but it may be possible to elicit support for the record keeping required
if the students know there is a problem and you are trying to track it
down. You don't need to know everything about every case, just enough to
establish a definitive pattern.
3. There is a possibility that one or more of the drives is physically
damaging the floppy disks' surface. Again, getting a history of which
drives a disk is used in may help to track down such a drive. You may
want to give this one some serious consideration. Although the floppy
disk technology is designed to work in a "dirty" environment, if you
have a drive that is damaging the actual disk surface, this could
potentially lead to damage on other floppy drives. I have not heard of
this happening with modern floppy disks, but in the old mainframe days
with removable disks, I was aware of at least one instance that many
disk drives were damaged because an operator had difficulty reading one
disk pack on a particular drive, moved it to another, had the same
problem, moved it to a third and still had the same problem. All three
drives then had damaged disk heads that in turn damaged other disk
packs. Not a pleasant scenario!
4. If one or a few students are having a persistent problem, perhaps the
problem is outside your lab. If the students are using another computer
(e.g. one they have at home), suggest they format the disks on one of
the lab computers, rather on their "other" computer. This might reduce
the frequency of the problem.
--
Correct email address is bsan...@bcsc02.gov.bc.ca
Help fight spam see http://www.cauce.org/ and http://spam.abuse.net/.
Kristin Wallio
We have ~12,000 users, so I can't really say what type of disk are being used.
I can say that it is not entirely shabby disks as I have seen both good quality
and bad come in (I do have a couple of Imation disks). Usually we don't stress
too much over the ones that are obviously cheap or mistreated.
TechMan wrote:
> I have 16 NT boxes all running server or workstation 4 & sp3. Not one has
> ever had a problemwith this as far as i know. I suspect it is the floppy
> drives them selves.or poor disks. what kind of disk are you using? (I use 3M
> only "Imation")
Mike Crabtree
Have you tried booting one of the NT machines on which you cannot read a disk
to DOS, and then trying to read the disk?
i.e changing ONLY the OS - not any hardware.....
Mike Crabtree MVP - email: mike @ imjc . com
Lawrence Sweet
Kristin Wallio wrote:
I manage 35 nodes (Win NT4.0 no serv packs on Novell4.1) and get #2 more
than I should;
also, we get 'Exporer.exe error there is no disk in the drive abort
retry ignore' CONSTANTLY! it is driving me crazy. I have tried for hours
and hours to fix the damn problem. Ms is hiding some fundamental flaw
about their OS that they feel is too costlt to admit.
>
> I have not tried to look at these disks under 95. If I take one of the "bad"
> disks (disks that can't be read in NT) and put it into an NT machine it will
> give one of 3 errors: 1) a:\ is not accessible No ID address mark was found on
> the floppy disk, 2) a:\ is not accessible Data error (cyclic redundancy check),
> or 3) a:\ is not accessible The volume does not contain a recognized file
> system. The first two often occur when there is a bad sector on the disk. All
> three types of disks can be read on a standard DOS machine. The files are all
> intact and can be opened and run. If we make a diskcopy of the disks in DOS,
> the new disk can be read in NT just fine. If the disk itself can be read in NT
> and only one file or a couple of files are corrupt, usually those files are gone
> for good although sometimes the data can be retrieved through DOS editting.
> With disks that cannot be accessed, MS says that the disks were probably
> mistreated and have hardware errors (sometimes they do, sometimes they don't,
> sometimes they can be reformatted, in DOS, and used again). With file that are
> corrupt, they say the programs they are using are causing the error, except of
> course when they are using MS Word 97 and then they feel the user must be taking
> the disk out too soon or doing something else weird.
>
> Tim Hill wrote:
>
> > I'm still not clear. Are you saying you have a floppy disk, with files on
> > it, which can be read under Win95 and not under NT? The same files? w/o
> > reformatting? If that's the case, I don't see how MS can assign it as finger
> > trouble or hardware -- it must be an NT bug.
> >
> > --
> > Tim Hill -- Windows NT MVP
> >
> > Kristin Wallio wrote in message <348C4E21...@mail.wm.edu>...
> > >I have tons of floppies that work in DOS but not NT (haven't tried them in
> > >Win95). I have contacted MS tech support on several occassions and they
> > have
> > >it as an open issue but tell me that it is simply user error. The error
> > >occurs on our Gateways as well as Wins and some computers we had built by a
> > >company called Campus Computing, so yes it occurs across many h/w
> > platforms.
> > >Kristin
> > >
> > >Tim Hill wrote:
> > >
> > >> If you really can get hold of a floppy which reliably will not work on NT
> > >> but reads on WIn95 (on different machines) then hang on to it and contact
> > >> MS. I've certainly never heard of corruption caused by the NT
> > write-behind
> > >> cache. Does this occur on different h/w platforms?
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> Tim Hill -- Windows NT MVP
> > >>
> > >> Kristin Wallio wrote in message <348C0FBB...@mail.wm.edu>...
> > >> >I wanted to know if anyone else was having problems with floppy disks in
> > >> >NT. Run a lab with NT 4.0 sp3 but have also had the same problem (to a
> > >> >lesser extent) when our labs were 3.51. A lot of our students are
> > >> >running into various problems with their disks, they may lose a single
> > >> >file due to corruption or several files at the same time and sometimes
> > >> >the entire disk cannot be read in NT. Usually when a disk cannot be
> > >> >read by NT there is a bad disk sector or some other hardware error but
> > >> >the disk can be read in DOS and copying the contents to a new disk fixes
> > >> >the problem. Sometimes, however, the disk can't be read in either NT or
> > >> >DOS and its entire contents are lost. This is happening far more often
> > >> >than can be expected for normal disk corruption and we have found no
> > >> >problems with the drives or the machines themselves. Our machines show
> > >> >no signs of a virus and this happens in several different applications
> > >> >(usually Eudora and Word 97, our most used applications). Microsoft
> > >> >claims that it is either normal problems with wear and tear on disks or
> > >> >user error. We have posted signs on each machine telling students of
> > >> >proper disk treatment and the disk are still pouring in. I believe the
> > >> >problem is on save but the students don't usually notice it until they
> > >> >try to read from the disk again. I cannot replicate the error on demand
> > >> >but have lost one of my own disks.
> > >> >I know this is long but any ideas or suggestions are appreciated.
> > >> >Thanks,
> > >> >Kristin Wallio
Kristin Wallio
I have rebuilt one of my machines that was NT 4.0 as a Windows 95 machine. As an NT
4.0 workstation, the machine could not read my disks, as a 95 workstation it can.
So now DOS and 95 will read these "bad" disks but NT will not.