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Author Topic: DH0: seemingly never leaving Validating status  (Read 1643 times)

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Offline kamigaTopic starter

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DH0: seemingly never leaving Validating status
« on: July 10, 2022, 01:19:14 AM »
I'm attempting to add an HDD to an A500 with kickstart 1.3 and a 512k upgrade. I've got two dataflyer controllers: one SCSI version with a SCSI2SD adapter, and one IDE version with a compact flash adapter. Both exhibit the same problem.

During installation, the dataflyer installation disk correctly identifies the HDD name and disk sizes(2G), and allows for installation. Both installations proceed normally without error. Both, when restarted, boot into the normal workbench CLI(without the floppy, ofc) prompt off of the HDD.

The problem is that neither disks ever leaves "Validating" status as shown by the Workbench INFO tool, or the info command line. This makes the disks not writable and essentially unusable. Trying to copy from the command line throws 213 errors as a result.

I'm using yet a 3rd DataFlyer IDE controller with the same model CF adapter on a different A500. I know this combination of controller, adapter, CF card type is a valid compatible combination. All the jumpers are the same.

Maybe I'm just impatient, but the HDD simply never seem to validate. I've read other posts talking about using DiskSalv4 to execute the validation, but it requires Kickstart 2.0 or better. The older versions of DiskSalv don't support that feature, as far as I can tell.

DataFlyer includes some utilities to check health. The one returns ExpansionRom structures, and that all looks right to me -- matches what I'm seeing in the ROM, on the databus etc. The other utility detects disks, and correct returns the type(SCSI vs IDE), the name(as assigned in SCSI2SD or the Compact Flash ID), the size, number of blocks, etc.

How much time should this process take? Can I see the validator running somewhere? Check the progress of such?

Any other ideas?
 

Offline kamigaTopic starter

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Re: DH0: seemingly never leaving Validating status
« Reply #1 on: July 10, 2022, 03:17:59 AM »
I have a theory that the initial format is running out of memory, crashing, and the dataflyer installer isn't reporting that as such.

I changed the drive sizes to 512GBMB, and lo and behold, everything works fine.

There is a message here https://forum.amiga.org/index.php?topic=73661.msg850413#msg850413 that seems to imply that my 1MB A500 wouldn't have a chance in heck with validating a 2G drive. I'm not sure if that applies to 1.3, and offhand I don't know if a traditional format command (if that's how they do it) validates disks. Or if it's simply the first time that disk is seen it's validated.

Hey @Gulliver  I know you haven't been here in awhile, but would you happen to know?

I'm going to look for a memory monitoring utility and see if I can catch it live. It would be nice there's a utility that reports failed alloc's within the system.

My other system where I have a larger 4G drive and the similar configuration also had about 3G of RAM available....
« Last Edit: July 10, 2022, 03:19:13 AM by kamiga »
 

Offline QuikSanz

Re: DH0: seemingly never leaving Validating status
« Reply #2 on: July 10, 2022, 06:47:16 AM »
Good Day'

First, 1.3 is a bit long, try  2.04 or something. Blocksize will use a whole lot of Mem if large, stay at 512 maybe 256, not sure about that one.

Chris

PS, A Terrible-fire, will blow your mind.
 

Online Thomas

Re: DH0: seemingly never leaving Validating status
« Reply #3 on: July 10, 2022, 08:16:25 AM »

Block size is defined as a whole number of sectors. You cannot make a block smaller than a sector. Sector size is always 512 (or 4096 for drives larger than 2 TB).

Offline QuikSanz

Re: DH0: seemingly never leaving Validating status
« Reply #4 on: July 10, 2022, 11:05:50 AM »
OP reports 3G of Ram, no, 3 MB maybe unless windows host.
 

Offline kamigaTopic starter

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Re: DH0: seemingly never leaving Validating status
« Reply #5 on: July 10, 2022, 06:59:42 PM »
Yeah I've confirmed this both by reducing the size of the drive(which reduces RAM consumption), and by increasing RAM in WinUAE, which has support for this controller.

It's definitely insufficent RAM causing the initial format to fail which causes the drive to get stuck in Validating status.

While the dataflyer installer does not indicate an error happened, you can tell that it errored out by the lack of a "Do you want to install Workbench on Drive DH0:" dialog box being displayed. See attached. If it isn't displayed, then the format failed. Ignore the checkmarks and the happy guy with the thumbs up. It didn't work.

I bumped this A500 from 1MB(512+512) to 2.3MB, with 512k chip, and 1.8MB Slow. It worked fine with a 2GB drive.

Does anyone know of a memory monitor utility that can float on top of an existing application? Or enable a display on WinUAE? Or allow me to launch an application and monitor the RAM consumption/alloc() requests/etc ? The only problem is that perhaps AutoInstall (DF's application) simply calls the format executable. I tried just Amiga-N'ing back to workbench but even force-refreshing via the right mouse button, I don't think I'm fast enough to see the memory alloc and free.
 

Offline scuzzb494

Re: DH0: seemingly never leaving Validating status
« Reply #6 on: July 11, 2022, 02:47:23 PM »
Sounds like it doesn't know how big the drive is and just keeps looping round. I really have no idea what drive you are using but for me to overcome such issues I get the drives on the Workbench and only then do a Quick Format. Anything else just loses the data on the drives. I also format the dead space on the drive above the 4Gb threshold and DELETE it. First though it has to be created and then deleted to leave an empty area on the drive. This works on large IDE draives that I use as I never use CF stuff. I never use FORMAT. Only Quick.

Also get a ROM switcher or upgrade to to 2.04. Seriously 1.3 never had a hardrive controller. Its a pain in the rear. Get a switcher if you wanna kick back to 1.3. Only way forward is 2.04.

PS I have had a drive validate for over a day. So maybe leave the thing alone.

Online Thomas

Re: DH0: seemingly never leaving Validating status
« Reply #7 on: July 11, 2022, 04:20:04 PM »

No matter if normal format or quick format, in the end the file system is initialized. This means it writes a root block in the middle of the partition and marks it invalid. Next time the partition is mounted (usually immediately after format) the disk-validator jumps in and builds the bitmap. The bitmap is built in memory and then written to disk. After that the root block is marked valid.

If there is not enough memory, the disk-validator silently fails and leaves the root block invalid.

In any case the "invalid" flag is shown as "validating" in the info list, no matter if validation is still running or already failed.

In OS 3.2 the validator has been improved to throw an error message when it fails. But lack of memory still inhibits validation.