Does Install erase a disk?

[Michele31415]

In attempting to restore my hard disk fs3: from a USB stick to the SCSI2HD on my A2000, it somehow became unbootable.  I can still boot from floppy and the hard disk appears on the WB 3.1 screen and I can see all the restored files there but it won't boot.

So if I say "install fs3:" will that erase all the files I copied from the USB stick?  I'm asking because it took over two hours to do the copy the first time, mostly because every 10 files or so I got a pop-up saying "bad sector" on the USB stick (but then it worked fine after selecting Retry).  I'd rather not have to go through that again.  It would be nice if Install wrote a boot block and nothing else.

[Michele31415]

Oh!  Well that's really good to know - I'm glad I asked first.  So is there any way to install an OS on a hard disk without affecting the files already on the disk?

[Michele31415]

You're absolutely right.  Here is hopefully a better description.  I have a 1 GB disk defined as LUN 0 and named FS3: on my 16 GB SD card in my SCSI2HD connected to a GVP HC+8 SCSI contyroller.  There's also a 2 GB hard disk and a CD-ROM on the same SCSI daisy chain.

Originally, I booted 3.1 from floppy and installed 3.1 on FS3:.  That worked fine.  If I just powered up the machine, it booted directly to OS 3.1 on FS3:.  Then I reloaded my backup of the original FS3: hard drive from a USB stick onto the new SCSI2SD FS3: by saying "copy <usb-name> FS3: all".  Took about two hours.

Now when I try to boot from the SCSI2SD, the disk activity LED flashes around for a few seconds as usual but then all activity stops and I see nothing but a light gray screen.  If I try to reboot using CTL-A-A, I get more disk activity and then the red error box with "Software failure.  Press left mouse button to continue.  Error: 0000 0008  Task: 00212DA0".  At this point I have to power-cycle the machine to even be able to boot from my 3.1 floppy.  That works, and an FS3: drawer icon appears on the workbench screen and I can access all the files there.

HDToolBox said there are "no drives in system".  The window for the drives was empty and all the buttons below were grayed out except for Help and Exit.  So I changed scsi.device to gvpscsi.device in the icon's info.  Now it shows the drives on the SCSI2HD.  But how do I tell if it thinks they're bootable?

If I try to boot FS3: using the "boot with no startup-sequence" option from the preboot diagnostic screen, it just goes to the ROM OS screen.

One other possibly relevant point - the USB backup was a 3.9 OS.

[Michele31415]

By ROM OS screen I mean the window that says "AmigaDOS ROM Operating System" and just has a "1>" prompt on it.

I can't say for certain the USB stick files are OK.  I do know that I was able to read that stick on my PC without any errors.  I checked a random sample of files that I copied to the new FS3: and they looked OK.  But clearly, that copy operation trashed the OS, either due to some bad files or because the backup was OS 3.9 and the OS on FS3: was 3.1.

So I decided to format one of my unused disks on the SCSI2SD and copied FS3: to that as a backup.  Then I tried reinstalling 3.1 on FS3:.  It said it worked OK but when I rebooted, it threw all sorts of errors like "Unable to find Sound", "Unable to find SCSI LUN 6" and "Volume not registered", and then went to the Software Error screen.

At this point I decided it wasn't worth trying to recover this drive.  I just reformatted it and will do a clean OS 3.1 install from floppy on it, then install AmiCDFS from floppy.  That will let me read the OS 3.9 CD and do that upgrade.  Then I can selectively copy back the non-system directories from my copy of FS3:

UPDATE:

As long as I was reformatting I decided to increase the size of FS3: from 1 GB to 4 GB using UDToolbox.  Then I started the Format operation.  The disk activity light started flickering and all looked good.  But I just checked again - the LED is still flickering but it's been three hours and the progress bar is still stuck on zero.  Does it really take this long to format a big SD disk or is something else wrong now?

[Michele31415]

Oh *DUH*!  I knew that but somehow ended up clicking on Format instead of Quick Format.  Quick format worked just fine (and quickly).  The new disk shows up as 2 GB.  I loaded WB 3.1 from floppy, rebooted and all was still good.  I installed ASimCDFS from floppy and then ran the OS 3.9 Installer from CD.  It said it completed successfully and that I should reboot.

But when I did - we're back to the "Software error" in a red box again.  I don't get it - this is the same machine as the original install.  The only difference is that I now have the GVP HC+8 SCSI controller and a SCSI2SD instead of the A2091 and an actual Quantum hard drive.

I was able to reboot using the 3.9 Emergency Rescue Disk but it's not clear what to do next.  Running info shows that it thinks DH0: (what I'm calling FS3:) is "not a DOS disk".

I'm wondering - since a clean 3.9 install from CD fails the same way as my attempted USB backup restore (which contains 3.9) maybe something else is going on here, like the GVP controller.  I know it uses its own gvpscsi.device instead of scsi.device.  Could that be why this isn't working?

[Michele31415]

No, it was just operator error.  I saw both the Format and Quick Format buttons and somehow wasn't thinking that Quick Format was the one I wanted.  No harm done though.  I canceled the unending Format, did it over again with a Quick Format and that worked OK.

[Michele31415]

Can you please run this program and add the report as an attachment here: https://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/downloads/hddreport.lha

After that edit Startup-Sequence of FS3. Add

set echo on

Thanks - got it!  The problem right now is that there is no FS3: anymore.  When I boot from the OS 3.9 emergency disk, FS3's icon doesn't even appear on the WB screen.  I have to go to HDToolbox to find it (SCSI address 0).  Should I reformat it and load OS 3.1 back on it and then run your program?  (I may not be able to get to this today though - I have a bunch of errands to run).

[Michele31415]

Holy moly, Thomas - you're a genius!  I renamed that file, removed the OS 3.1 floppy, did a CTL-A-A reboot and hey presto, it booted right into FS3: running OS 3.9!  I've been pulling my hair out over this for a week now.  Problem solved.  Thank you so much!

[Michele31415]

It's not really a solution but rather a workaround. By renaming the ROM update file you actually deactivated one half of OS 3.9. The better solution would have been to investigate which part of the ROM update causes the software error and exclude it explicitly.

There might still be an issue with your system, you just don't notice any more.

Oh?  Bummer then.  Which half?  Is there a way to figure that out?  In playing around with it yesterday, I'm having trouble getting my x-surf 3 card to connect to the net.  I also can't find the screensaver icon that's supposed to be in Prefs.

[Michele31415]

The "Install" command (all the versions which shipped with Workbench 1.x, 2.x, 3.x and also 4.x) is safe to use with storage devices which aren't df0, df1, df2 or df3. The "worst" that could happen is that the "Install" command will complain with the somewhat unspecific error message "object is of the wrong type" (what is that "object"? it's the device you wanted to install a boot block on) or just printing the command template ("Usage: INSTALL [DRIVE] {DF0:|DF1:|DF2:|DF3:} [NOBOOT][CHECK]") again.
...

Thank you for taking the time to write such a comprehensive explanation of this command.  This post ought to be made a sticky for future reference.

[Michele31415]

I also can't find the screensaver icon that's supposed to be in Prefs.

Maybe because it’s not supposed to be there.

Isn't this?
https://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/AmigaOS_Manual:_Workbench_Preferences#ScreenBlanker_Editor

[Michele31415]

Blanker is in Tools/Commodities.

Thanks.  That's what I was looking for.  It wasn't mentioned in any of the search results I got.

[Michele31415]

No, that is OS4.

I see.  I guess I was confused because I followed a search result there and there was no mention of it being for OS 4 on that page.  You have to go back to the Main page and then read halfway down before finding a single reference to "4.0" there.  So can I upgrade from 3.9 to 4.0?  I seem to recall reading somewhere that 3.9 was the end of the line for the A2000.