EIDETEST
                                   
                                   

INTRODUCTION

EIDEtest was written to check for the CMD PCIO640B and  PC-Tech RZ-
1000 EIDE controller flaws commonly found on PCI motherboards with
Mercury and Neptune chipsets. It does not check for the flaw directly.
Rather it does a high level test, ensuring that what is written to a
file is what comes back later.


BACKGROUND

Please read the enclosed FAQ, RX1000.TXT for more information on the
flaw.

In covers such topics as:

*    Reporting the flaw.
  
*    Do you likely have the flaw?

*    Recognising the RZ-1000 and CMD PCIO640B chips

*    Making your OS immune to the flaw.

*    What can you do if you find the flaw?

HOW TO USE

Under DESQview, Windows, Windows For WorkGroups , NT or OS/2
emulation, all under DOS emulation and run the program:

     EIDEtest.exe C:

where C: is your EIDE drive partition that has at least 7 MB of free
space on it for the test.

Just follow the instructions on the screen. In phase 2 of the test,
you will need to run other programs to generate potentially
interfering simultaneous I/O activity while the test is running.


INTERPRETING TEST RESULTS

If the test passes, you probably don’t have the flaw. Sometimes the
flaw does not manifest immediately. You might have to run the test for
many hours in the background for the problem to show up. Running the
test under pure DOS does not prove much since it is almost impossible
to generate background interfering I/O activity.

If the test fails, it means you your hard disks are not working
properly. It does not diagnose why. If you have a PCI motherboard with
a Mercury or Neptune chipset, the odds are that the PC-Tech RZ-1000 or
the CMD PCIO640B is the cause of the trouble. However, overheating,
other unrelated hardware failures or design flaws, or software bugs
can also cause you hard disk to make errors.


FREEWARE STATUS

EIDEtest, C++ source and executable may be freely copied and used for
any purpose except military. Unlike many of the other Canadian Mind
Products utilities, it is free, not shareware. You are also free to
port the code to other operating systems so long as you leave the
copyright banner intact.

The author, Roedy Green is a computer consultant who prefers to work
on Forth, C++, Delphi, DOS, OS/2 and Internet Web projects.

If you send me $5 (US or Canadian) to cover duplication, shipping and
handling I will send you a diskette containing all the relevant test
programs, patches and essays.

Please report which machines you find the flaw in, and which software
and fixpacks you were using at the time. Send email to:

     Roedy@bix.com

or discuss this problem on the Internet newsgroup in:

     comp.os.os2.bugs.

You can also write via snail mail:

Roedy Green
Canadian Mind Products
#601 - 1330 Burrard Street
Vancouver, BC  CANADA
V6Z 2B8
(604) 685-8412


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