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Subject: IBM75GXP dieing and stuff...
Name:
 tide
Date: 1/12/2001 9:53:56 AM (GMT-7)
IP Address: 194.230.130.37
Message:
one of the guys in the thread at anands, LED referred, had summarized it all up. here ya go
This affects Win98, Win98SE and WinME - possibly Win95 - but not WinNT or Win2k and not Linux.
It does not specifically affect only IBM 75GXP drives, but any drive on the ATA100 interface with a large (2MB or more) local cache and a really fast processor >733MHz or >933MHz depending on who you talk to.
It is caused by the fact that on really fast CPU's with really fast interfaces (ATA100) these OS's shut down the computer and turn off the power without waiting for the cache on the drive to be written back to the drive. When the power is turned off, the cache is lost and so updated data may not be written. So this ends up being the equivalent of shutting down Windows while it is running by powering down hard (with the power supply switch).
It should not cause a drive failure (as in a mechanical failure) since the drives should still autopark correctly. But there is a potential data corruption issue.
Microsoft and IBM are aware of the issue.
Solution:
There are several ways around it that all involve prolonging Win98's shutdown time. You can play a long .wav file, you can turn off power management (so you'll get the "It's safe to turn off your computer now" message), you can download a patch or you can hack the registry.
Other Issues
This is a completely different issue from the problems of running IBM 75GXP's from a Highpoint ATA100 controller. There is apparently a well known issue involving IBM 75GXP's running in ATA100 on the HighPoint controller. The summary of this issue is: use another HD other than the 75GXP, use another controller other than the HighPoint, or run the Highpoint in ATA33 mode.
As for me, I'll wipe my RAID and then reinstall win98 and install that patch, which can be found at microsoft. The problem has already been covered my M$... Knowledgebase: Q273017
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