14 Apr
2015
14 Apr
'15
8:49 p.m.
On 04/14/2015 05:24 PM, Robert Jarratt wrote:
Yes, I didn't mean to suggest it was a proper buzzer, so
it is the chirping sound you mention. I think it is the head
Right, so it sounds like it is indeed a recalibration. I had wondered if it
was something to do with the drive getting up to speed, since I have
replaced the power transistors that drive the spindle. I suppose I am not
sure what kinds of errors would cause this to happen, but I am pretty sure
the read errors must be related. Perhaps I should format the drive in one of
my MicroVAX 2000 machines.
When the drive has just spun up, it may do a long sweep of
the heads and make that sound. After that, any time the
controller sends the reset command to the drive, it will run
slowly from wherever it is to cylinder zero, so you may get
another long recal sound. I seem to recall on the VAX you
got two recal sounds when booting, once when you hit the
reset button and the Q-bus got a reset signal, and once when
Files-11 came up and reset all the drives.
An occasional recal might not be too worrying, but if it
does a lot of them it probably means lots of read errors are
occurring. This should show up in the system logs.
Generally, any time the drive can't read a sector header, or
the header indicates it is on a different cylinder than
expected, the controller will order a recalibrate. Those
would be logged as a seek error.
Jon