Epson 386SX - Manual (Page 226)

Select option 1 from the menu to start this test. The program
displays the number of each cylinder it finds. For example, with
a hard disk, the first message you see is:
Current cylinder is nnn
where
nnn
is the largest cylinder number used on the drive. The
cylinder number counts down to 0. The seek is performed by the
read/write heads simultaneously, so you see the cylinder
numbers only once. If no errors occur, the menu reappears.
Write, Read Check
This check tests the ability of the hard disk drive to read and
write data. The test writes to and reads from each sector of the
innermost cylinder of the disk, using each head.
Note
This test destroys all data on the innermost cylinder of the
selected hard disk drive. This cylinder is reserved for
diagnostics, and is never used for storage by MS-DOS or any
other operating system. Therefore, data created by
application programs is not destroyed.
Select option 2 from the menu to start this test. You see these
messages:
The data on the highest physical
cylinder
may
be destroyed by the
check.
Start the check ? (Y/N)
Select
Y
to continue with the test. You do not see a cylinder
count during the test. If no errors occur, the program returns to
the menu.
C-34 Performing System Diagnostics