Re: Customer Reports

[miller@SOL.CS.ROCHESTER.EDU (Brad Miller)]

    Date: Tue, 04 Dec 90 11:39:02 -0500
    From: mac@trantor.harris-atd.com


      Has anyone heard back from Symbolics on why the 8.0.1 flod files don't work
    on all the machines. (For those of you who don't remember, they work on some
    3620s but not on seamingly identical ones. Clear Machine errors out and resets
    the fep.) Symbolics said they had someone working on it and he'd contact us
    via Email. That was in September and I haven't heard a thing. The local
    Symbolics rep has checked for me and can't find anyone at Symbolics even aware
    of the problem. If anyone has any ideals about this problem, I'd love to hear
    from you.

We had this problem on a 40. We were told the problem is if the new flod
files are used to create a file on a disk formatted with the old ones, you
will corrupt something such that during clear memory you get the FEP reset
(bus error). In fact, we verified this on the 40 that was bad: after
connecting a new drive (that worked) and created a FEP file with the new
flods, the machine could no longer be booted. Disconnecting the drive made
it work ok, and reformatting it with the new flods fixed the problem.

The funny thing was that we have another 40 that works just fine creating
files with the new flods, even though the disks were formatted with the old
ones.

Symbolics CE took one of the failed drives back to Symbolics for further
analysis. That was about 8 weeks ago... I haven't heard anything since but
also have had no failures. Both our 20s have had no problems at all with the
new flods, nor has our 70.

Hope this helps,
----
 Brad Miller		U. Rochester Comp Sci Dept.
 miller@cs.rochester.edu {...allegra!rochester!miller}