Hi Lewis

98304 is also 3 x 32678 (or 3 x 32 K) and represent 3 clusters of a HDD with
a 2 Gb partition formatted with FAT16.  In other words, SCANDISK has found 3
clusters and wants to save them to a file.

Your problems:

1.      Look for interrupt clashes, especially if you have any ISA cards
which are not plug'n'play.
2.      Check that the drivers for the ZIP drive, scanner and printer do not
clash - I assume that they are all parallel ports devices.
3.      Check that some program loaded during startup (or elsewhere) is not
running away - check on which processes are running.
4.      From the 98304 above, your hard drive (or one of its partitions) may
be getting full.  32 K cluster sizes are extremely inefficient for data
storage - you are probably wasting 40% of the available space on the HDD
partition.

Good luck

Mike


-----Original Message-----
From: Lewis C Emerson [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2000 8:20 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [PCBUILD] An unsolved (unsolvable?) problem


I have muddled along for some time with a computer problem that has
recently become very, very severe.  The machine locks up in the middle of
doing something, usually reading e-mail, and requires rebooting to get
functioning again.  It seems to always happen when I'm just scrolling
down to see portions of the e-mail below the bottom border.  About half
the time a Cntrl-Alt-Del will reboot, but also, half the time requires
turning the machine completely, pause for ten seconds or so, then turning
back on.  In both cases I see the error message that the machine was not
shut down properly and requires that I run SCAN DISK - which always find
a bunch of unused bytes that I just delete.  The number of bytes are
usually 98,304, but not always.  (For what that's worth that number is
exactly 3 times 2 raised to the 15th power)

Someone has suggested that I look at the devices connected to my system
(A Pentium 166/MMX, processor running W-95, 32 MB RAM, one 3-1/2" floppy,
one HD with two partitions, a ZIP drive, scanner, etc.)  When I looked at
SETTINGS-CONTROL PANEL-SYSTEM-DEVICE MANAGER I see an unusual entry.
Under Hard Disk Controller when I click on the "Plus Sign" in the box I
see the following:

        Intel 82371AB PCI Bus Master Controllers
        Primary Bus Master IDE Controller
        Secondary Bus Master IDE Controller
        Standard IDE/ESDI Hard Disk Controller
        Standard IDE?ESDI Hard Disk Controller

I don't understand why I have two entries for the Standard IDE/ESDI
Controller.  By the way, at times I have seen two of many other devices,
like the modem, the floppy,  etc.

I have run the standard things - ie. SCAN DISK, DEFRAG, etc.  (Many
times, in fact) Zilch.

Have also run SAFE MODE (many times) and have installed W95VXD.EXE.
Again zilch.

One other thing that may possible bear on this - because it's something
relatively new.  When I click on the mail server icon (Juno on the
desktop) a window-like shade drops over the icon - and just after that
another one drops over the "My Computer" icon.  Interesting, what?

One final clue - if I can call it that - the machine now is running at
about one tenth the speed at which it used to run.

Comments, suggestions, ideas, etc.

Lewis Emerson

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