4 Jan
2010
4 Jan
'10
1:44 p.m.
On Sun, 3 Jan 2010, Jim Leonard wrote:
In defense of Microsoft, disk caches had been
deferring writes for years
before SMARTDRV. It only became a problem for Microsoft because they
deployed this as the default behavior without notifying the user.
They also deployed it at the same time as disk compression, which people
were scared of. When user actions caused deferred writes to corrupt
disks, the disk compression was blamed. Infoworld, who by that time no
longer had competence in testing, set up a loop to do some macros in word
processing, some macros in a spreadsheet, maybe a file copy or two, a
FULL RESET, REPEAT. That, of course, resulted in corruption, since there
were deferred writes waiting each time the RESET was done. Infoworld
had literally dozens of articles about "Disk compression damages disks".
billg contacted the editor and said that their test suite was flawed
(TRUE!). Infoworld ran an editorial accusing billg of intimidation.
(probably TRUE, but not in this specific case)
They also, by default, didn't give users a choice. The installation of
Windoze 3.10 installed and turned on SMARTDRV. On one machine, I
encountered a disk hardware error towards the end, while it was installing
fonts (a consistent error that neither SSTOR nor SPINRITE could find!).
Normally, I would record the filename of the file that had a problem, "IGNORE"
the failed write, complete the installation, rename that file on the disk
"BADSECT", and manually install that file. But, because the file "had
already been successfully written", "IGNORE" was not an option. Nor
"ABORT". Nor "FAIL". The ONLY option was "RETRY". NO WAY
OUT.
Only way out was to reboot. Since SMARTDRV rearranged writes, the
DIRectory had not been written yet, and after reboot, there was no trace
in the directory of the failed attempts, nor any record of WHERE the error
had been.
I was in the 3.10 "Beta" program, so I called MICROS~1.
How to disable SMARTDRV for WIN3.10 installation: "can't be done"
I told them that inability to operate without SMARTDRV created SERIOUS
problems, that would probably result in recalled products.
(Sure'nuff, MS-DOS 6.2x had to be created, and distributed FREE)
"You have a hardware problem, nothing that WE can do about it."
I created a stub program, renamed it "SMARTDRV.EXE" (so that WIN3.10 could
install THAT, and continued without SMARTDRV. and I created a "BADSECT"
file occupying the location with the disk error.
I'd been using disk caches since the mid 1980s
(anyone remember the 35K
"Lightening"?) and willingly turned that behavior on since it made
working with floppy-only systems tolerable. But the difference with me
is that I, an informed user, made that choice and was aware of the
behavior. I never lost data... but then again, I never suffered media
failure.
Fortunately, I hit an "irreparable" problem in the WIN3.10 installation.
Once I knew what was going on, I didn't have any problems.
WRITE cacheing requires an informed user.
BTW, any NEGATIVE feedback would get you dropped from the "Beta" program,
which is absolutely opposite of what a "Beta" program needs to be.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com