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HARD1.TXT
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1990-11-25
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Hard Drive
and
File Allocation Table [FAT] issues:
It takes 10 to 15 minutes for the hard drive and controller to warm up. If
you power the computer on and off every day, eventually you will have
read/write problems. Either give the computer at least 15 minutes to warm
up before going in the program, or leave the computer running around the
clock, but turn off the monitor when you leave at night. If left on day
and night, the hard drive and mother board will actually run better and
last longer.
Anticipate hard drive problems. If a bad sector exists on your hard drive,
the operating system has no way of avoiding doing read/write to the
corrupted area. Any database program will, by definition, access much data
during the execution of its main program. If a bad sector resides on your
hard drive, the operating system may periodically and at random write to
that area. Corrupted data, indexes, and memory files often come from this
one cause.
A number of utilities exist that will test every sector on your hard drive
for corruption. Once identified, those sectors are 'marked' inactive in
the directory and will not be accessed anymore. The best among this group
is Peter Norton's [TM, Peter Norton Computing, Inc.] DISKTEST.COM. You
will find this utility when you purchase his Norton Utilities - Advanced
Edition [TM, Peter Norton Computing, Inc.]. Any active database user
should use this utility at least every month, if not every week.
Let's say your hard drive is C:. The syntax to check for bad sectors is:
DISKTEST C:
If the utility asks you for 'Disk test or File test', indicate that you
want a 'Disk test' by entering a 'D'. [note that DISKTEST.COM is
sometimes identified by its' short name of DT.COM.]
For more information on this product, call Peter Norton Computing, Inc.
File Allocation Table [FAT] issues:
Maintain a clean File Allocation Table [FAT] in your directory. The
operating system is continually opening and closing files. In a large
database program, this activity is intensified. If you restart the
computer while the operating system has some files open, it 'forgets' to
close them. These 'forgotten' file closings can cause a problem when you
later continue the cycle of opening and closing files. The command to
'close' these files is:
CHKDSK /F
Good directory and FAT hygiene dictates that you do this weekly if you use
a database program often.