Any HDD _NOT_ using RAM uCode?

[lasitter]

They just routinely fail to happen.

Thats the thing you should be fixing rather than obsessing about
the internals of hard drive design.

I finally googled "Rod Speed", and I guess I'm no longer surprised that
you've consumed 25 percent of this thread. You have your very own FAQ!
Compiled by experts on the subject ...

Subject: The Rod Speed FAQ
Newsgroups: aus.comms, aus.politics
Date: 2001-01-16 05:12:02 PST

Who or What is Rod Speed?

Rod Speed is an entirely modern phenomenon. Essentially, Rod
Speed is an insecure and worthless individual who has discovered
he can enhance his own self-esteem in his own eyes by playing
"the big, hard man" on the InterNet.

Why is Rod Speed worth a FAQ?

You need to brush up on your NetSpeak. Rod most certainly isn't
worth a FUQ in anybody's opinion except his own.

Rod certainly posts a lot. Why is that?

It relates back to the point about boosting his own self esteem
by what amounts to effectively having a wank in public. Rod's
personality, as exemplified by his posts, means he is practically
unemployable which means he sits around at home all day festering
away and getting worse and worse. This means he posts more and
more try and boost the old failing self esteem. Being unemployed
also means he has a lot of time on his hands to post in the
first place.

But maybe Rod really is a very clever and knowledgable person?

Clever? His posts wouldn't support that theory. As far as
being knowledgable, well, Rod has posted to various aus
newsgroups including invest, comms, and politics. He has posted
to all as a self professed "expert" and flames any and all who
disagree with him. Logically, there's no way any single
individual could be more than a jack of all trades across such a
wide spread of subject matter.

But maybe Rod really is an expert in some areas?

Possibly. However, his "bedside manner" prevents him from
being taken seriously by most normal people. Also, he has
damaged his credibility in areas where he might know what he's on
about by shooting himself in the foot in areas where he does not.
For example, in the case of subject matter such as politics, even
a view held by Albert Einstein cannot be little more than an
opinion and to vociferously denigrate an opposing opinion is
simply small mindedness and bigotry, the kind of which Einstein
himself fought against his whole life.

What is Rod Speed's main modus operandi?

Simple! He shoots off a half brained opinion in response to any
other post and touts that opinion as fact. When challenged, he
responds with vociferous and rabid denigration. He has an
instantly recognisable set of schoolboy put downs limited pretty
much to the following: "Pathetic, Puerile, Little Boy, try
harder, trivial, more lies, gutless wonder, wanker, etc etc".
The fact that Rod has been unable to come up with any new insults
says a lot about his outlook and intelligence.

But why do so many people respond to Rod in turn?

It has to do with effrontery and a lack of logic. Most people
who post have some basis of reason for what they write and when
Rod retorts with his usual denigration and derision they respond
emotionally rather than logically. It's like a teacher in a
class room who has a misbehaving pupil. The teacher challenges
the pupil to explain himself and the student responds with "****
off, Big Nose!" Even thought the teacher has a fairly normal
proboscis, he gets a dent in his self-esteem and might resort to
an emotional repsonse like "yeah? well your dick wouldn't fill a
pop rivet, punk", which merely invites some oneupmanship from the
naughty pupil. Of course, the teacher should not have
justified the initial comment with a response, especially in
front of the class. The correct response was "please report to
the headmaster's office right NOW!"

What is a "RodBot"?

Some respondents in aus.invest built a "vritual Rod" which was
indiscernable from the "real" Rod. Net users could enter an
opinion or even a fact and the RoDBot would tell them they were
pathetic lying schoolboys who should be able to do better or some
equally pithy Rod Speedism.

Are you saying that Rod Speed is a Troll?

You got it!

What is the best way to handle Rod Speed?

KillFile!

 

[Rod Speed]

Some gutless ****wit desperately cowering behind
lasitter <[email protected]> desperately attempted to
bullshit its way out of its predicament in message
and fooled absolutely no one at all. As always.

 

[lasitter]

Backups become more tedious as the amount of backed up material

That depends on how frequently you want to backup, how valuable
is your data and how much of that data changes between backups.
Also, if there is a need to archive it from time to time or not.

All valid factors that help set bounds for the problem.

Do you have that need from your friend, you have mention before?

Specifically, no. Almost anything I could put together with two
drives and xcopy would work fine.

Part of my problem is how many in the general computing public relate
to their computers.

They want their computer to be like any other appliance. To them
it's so when it croaks, toss it out. But a toaster doesn't hold all
the data valuables as does a hard drive. By the time they
realize the difference, the data is gone.

Ideally, you'd give them a short course on the benefits of full
and incremental backups, snapshots for archiving, off-site
storage, etc. You'd have them evaluate the importance of
different types of data, determine the frequency of backup
needed, the amount of data to backed up, the different backup
media, speed, software ease of use, cost and so on.

After sorting out all the means and ends you'd come up with just
the right parameters and the solution would be obvious. But:

The toaster never demanded nearly as much from them in the past,
and now you're going to pile TRAINING on top of that? Getting
them to sit down and learn a new program?

Talk about eyes glazing over!

Try to explain this to many an average user before disaster
strikes and you're just a salesman. Spend $100 to avert a
disaster that MIGHT happen? They'd rather ignore the potential
for disaster and hope they don't have to spend $1,000 later to
recover from it.

The same people put off warnings from the plumbers until the
toilet backs up, and then something tangible happens that they
can immediately understand and cannot ignore: Water everywhere
and a stench that'll keep you up at night.

So this "human nature" factor is what got me started on this
thread. Of course I want a good backup on the end of everything,
but I also like to identify which kinds of drives are less likely
to fail, and while failing are more amenable to recovery
efforts.

That way if the backup process becomes too difficult or intrusive
for the user, and they disable it (been there!), you might still
have generally reliable drives that are inclined to cooperate
when called upon.

And thank you for trying to provide relevant answers without
flaming!

 

[Peter]

That depends on how frequently you want to backup, how valuable

All valid factors that help set bounds for the problem.

What a deep thought ;-)

Part of my problem is how many in the general computing public relate
to their computers.

They want their computer to be like any other appliance. To them
it's so when it croaks, toss it out. But a toaster doesn't hold all
the data valuables as does a hard drive. By the time they
realize the difference, the data is gone.

Yeah, it takes a while. But most do not throw out their old wallets
before transferring it contents to a new one.

Ideally, you'd give them a short course on the benefits of full
and incremental backups, snapshots for archiving, off-site
storage, etc. You'd have them evaluate the importance of
different types of data, determine the frequency of backup
needed, the amount of data to backed up, the different backup
media, speed, software ease of use, cost and so on.

After sorting out all the means and ends you'd come up with just
the right parameters and the solution would be obvious. But:

The toaster never demanded nearly as much from them in the past,
and now you're going to pile TRAINING on top of that? Getting
them to sit down and learn a new program?

No. You make a solution for them. Explain what to watch for,
but backup happens by itself. You automate it for them.
Like a good antivirus software. Automatic updates, automatic
scan. Limit their ability to turn it off.
Check their machines on a regular basis.
That is a help/service you provide.

Obviously recommend or use good quality products.
This approach didn't change much and everyone understands
that.

 

[J. Clarke]

What a deep thought ;-)


Yeah, it takes a while. But most do not throw out their old wallets
before transferring it contents to a new one.


No. You make a solution for them. Explain what to watch for,
but backup happens by itself. You automate it for them.
Like a good antivirus software. Automatic updates, automatic
scan. Limit their ability to turn it off.
Check their machines on a regular basis.
That is a help/service you provide.

The problem with this is that good backup requires that something be
physically removed from the machine and placed in a different location,
otherwise whatever kills the machine may kill the backup.

 

[Peter]

The problem with this is that good backup requires that something be

physically removed from the machine and placed in a different location,
otherwise whatever kills the machine may kill the backup.

While "removable" backup has its undisputable advantages;
for the sole purpose of increasing reliability of a system,
duplication of data to a second device might be sufficient
enough in most cases.

It is most probable that "whatever kills the machine" causes
a single disk failure, while a second one is still perfectly OK.

I have never experienced an simultaneous disk crash with
two (or more disks), but heard about power surges or
fires which destroyed multiple disks at the same time.

I think single disk failures are much more common than
disasters in which all connected disks are gone at the same
time.

 

[Rod Speed]

It shouldnt be that hard to deal with that with DVDs.

While "removable" backup has its undisputable advantages;
for the sole purpose of increasing reliability of a system,
duplication of data to a second device might be sufficient
enough in most cases.

It is most probable that "whatever kills the machine" causes
a single disk failure, while a second one is still perfectly OK.

I have never experienced an simultaneous disk crash with
two (or more disks), but heard about power surges or
fires which destroyed multiple disks at the same time.

Power surges are easy enough to avoid for more money.

Yes, fire and flood or just theft of the physical PC is a real
problem that only removable media can protect against, and
even then you really need to remove it from the building etc too.

I think single disk failures are much more common than
disasters in which all connected disks are gone at the same
time.

Corse they are, but house fire and theft still happen.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Thanks. I now know what I was wrong about.



http://webpages.charter.net/dperr/diskguid.txt
http://www.ata-atapi.com/hiwfnf.htm#T10
http://members.iweb.net.au/~pstorr/pcbook/book4/hdinter.htm

I think that that is basically pre IDE/SCSI (no firmware on drives)
or just interface related.

Completely true. But I figured that someone in the field
(former Seagate engineer?) lurking here might step forward ...



Was unable to load this link.

Bwah. Google tampering with my content? What next?

Copy/paste the link in Address bar and change ...@ to eU1@

A TinyUrl perhaps?



Yes. No one fix solves all problems.

Exactly. Many other uses for the reserved area and any of them having
a problem may shut the drive down.

http://tinyurl.com/dt383

My comment obviously was with the Drive manuf. apps, s.a. DFT, in mind.

So that is apparently the extra step taken by the folks at ACE
Laborary making the PC-3000 controller. It's interesting to see
in this document how they go about getting the data to / from a
drive with problems.

In the case of the DMVS drives, which "report" even before
spinning up,

Required even, with SCSI.

I wonder if they could be re-flashed even though the
RAM uCode on the platter was corrupted?

Depends on how it became corrupted.

Or is there any info even being loaded from the service tracks
of DMVS drives other than bad sector info?

Here is an excerpt from the IBM DFHS/DCHS manual:

"
4.20 Reserved Area

The target maintains a Reserved Area on the disk.
This area is never used for customer data.
An initiator has no direct access to this area.

The Reserved Area is used as follows:

o Power-on Self-Test
The Reserved Area is used during the self-test to verify that the Drive
can read and write with each of its heads.

o Flags
A set of flags is used by the Drive to checkpoint critical operations.
For example, the flags are used to determine whether the Drive lost
power during a format or relocate physical sector operation. Operations
such as these must be completed before normal processing can resume.

o Manufacturing SAT map (PList)
The map of disk defect sites created at manufacturing time,
SAT (Surface Analysis Test), is contained in the Reserved Area.
This map is used during format operations but is never altered.

o Grown defect map (GList)
The Reserved Area also contains a grown defect map.
The GList map is empty at time of manufacture.
Defect locations defined by the initiator with the Reassign Blocks, For-
mat Unit command or Automatic Reallocation are maintained in the GList.
Note: The Format Unit command may purge, replace, preserve or add to
the GList at the initiator's option.

o Error Logs
The Error Logs are used to maintain information for Predictive Failure Ana-
lysis functions such as Automatic/Recommend Block Rewrite/Reallocation.

o RAM Microcode
The Drive's RAM microcode load is contained in the Reserved Area.

o Configuration Information
- Configuration Record (Configuration data and Controller data)
- Inquiry (VPD) data
- Mode Select/Sense saved parameters

o Scratch areas for Reassignment

o Predictive Failure Test Areas

"

Much of this will apply to IDE drives as well, but using different names,
e.g "S.M.A.R.T. logs" and "Identification Sector".