From: nospam@needed.invalid   
      
   On Thu, 12/4/2025 4:54 PM, MikeS wrote:   
   > On 04/12/2025 15:39, jason_warren wrote:   
   >> I posted earlier about how the disk numbering changed:   
   >> disk zero became disk one and vice versa. I still don't   
   >> know how that happened, but after a month I think I'm back   
   >> from Computer Hell.   
   >>   
   >> The Alienware R9 suddenly began to run very slowly. I ran   
   >> every diagnostic I could find - the built-in ones and   
   >> others. All passed, including the long versions that took   
   >> hours to complete.   
   >>   
   >> I am diligent about backups and so I restored the SSD and   
   >> spinning SCSI drive, but that didn't solve the problem.   
   >> The machine still took half an hour just to boot, and I   
   >> could hear the SCSI disk rattling a lot throughout.   
   >>   
   >> Today I did a "clean everything" fresh Win 11   
   >> installation. The install proceeded quickly (I'd tried   
   >> before and it was very slow). Forcing the Win installation   
   >> to use the SSD cut install time from more than an hour to   
   >> 15 minutes.   
   >>   
   >> By and by, Windows reported that there was a slew of   
   >> updates to apply, about 30. That's not surprising   
   >> considering how long it had been since the last update.   
   >> But what I noticed, and hadn't seen before, was the fact   
   >> that four of the updates were for the (Intel) SCSI   
   >> adapter! I've seen plenty of updates over the years, but   
   >> they've always been for drivers.   
   >>   
   >> After the installation and required reboot, the machine   
   >> took off and is now running just as it always had.   
   >> There's more cleanup to do (and a fresh backup!). So, I'm   
   >> left wondering what happened.   
   >>   
   >> I have an idea (please don't laugh). I've been a ham radio   
   >> amateur since the 60's. We are now experiencing solar   
   >> cycle 25 and it's been the strongest in years. Cycles are   
   >> on an ~11-year cycle. A strong CME (Coronal Mass Ejection)   
   >> floods nearby space (us!) with a LOT of energetic   
   >> particles that are known to be able to disrupt sensitive   
   >> circuitry, sometimes momentarily, other times  actually   
   >> damaging the minute gates in today's super-dense chips.   
   >> Could the SCSI adapter have gotten dinged by a charged   
   >> particle?   
   >   
   > No idea what went wrong but I am certain it was not because   
   > your SCSI adapter was dinged by a charged particle. You just   
   > installed Win 11 on an SSD so why would the SCSI adapter affect   
   > its boot time with or without new drivers?   
      
   Disks receive analysis before they are mounted. Windows uses   
   automount in a sense. The reason Windows can CHKDSK so many   
   partitions sequentially at startup, is due to autochk.   
      
   (ControlSet001 here is likely to be CurrentControlSet)   
      
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager   
       BootExecute   REG_MULTI_SZ   autocheck autochk *   
      
   You would need to find a log of SCSI sense codes, to get some   
   idea what the "complaint" was on this subsystem. On Windows,   
   SCSI CDB (control data block) are used for "foreign" devices,   
   and you would be surprised how many subsystems use that. SCSI is   
   the interface proxy for unknown device types, allowing hobbyists   
   to glue things to an OS.   
      
   The first outboard SATA controller, the SIL3112, it used   
   a two-deep driver stack, and one of the layers, its job was   
   to translate a SCSI CDB into something a SATA interface could use.   
   This means, one of those driver layers is pretty thin.   
      
   The "secret" to storage, is good quality logging.   
      
   Even a Linux boot takes three minutes, when it is   
   distracted by some secondary drive having a bad hair day.   
   The "sudo dmesg" on Ubuntu, shows you what is going on.   
   That's not a fancy logging system, but many people use that   
   in lieu of learning how the "latest hot thing" in logging works.   
   In the same way that nobody here really wants to use EventVwr   
   for anything that matters.   
      
      Paul   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)