Re: Calling Customer Service for bad sectors

["Robert W. Kerns" <RWK@f.ila.dialnet.symbolics.com>]

    Date: Tue, 22 Nov 88 09:29 EST
    From: Reti@WESER.sreti.symbolics.com (Kalman Reti)
					  Compared to hours for restoring the
	LMFS, not counting down time waiting for customer service.
    But what about the hours lost due to corrupted files, missing data, etc.
    if you are wrong about the 20 second fix?

Well, are you talking about the corrupted files, missing data, etc. if
you are wrong about DOING the 20 second fix, or NOT DOING the 20 second
fix?  I've seen a lot of problems from doing a full LMFS restore.
Sometimes some of the backup tapes turn out bad.  And there's always
some files that were written AFTER the most recent backup, and you'll
find those out by stumbling into bugs and things that you already fixed
a week ago.

If there's a simple fix, it's worth a lot.  It's even worth spending a
somewhat larger block of time than doing a full restore, because the
results are better and more reliable.  If you do a full restore, and one
of the important tapes is bad, you're SCREWED.

It is a SERIOUS mistake to regard doing a full restore as anything other
than a RISKY attempt to save your ass.  Obviously, if your drive is
kaput, you've got no choice, but otherwise, do ANYTHING to avoid it.

You can always fall back to doing the full restore (or more likely, a
partial restore) if you screw up.

Having someone who knows LMFS helps.  I've trained a number of people in
the art of fixing damaged LMFS's over the years, and some of those
people have trained still others.  A few of them still even work for
Symbolics!  But most of us are out here in the real world now, and can
either answer questions, or may be available to help you on-site.

This applies to FEPFS as well as LMFS, by the way.