UPDATE: FOUND the cause, but have NO idea WHY .. A new issue I have never seen..

[Malakie]

Hi,

UPDATE:  Found the cause (see below for original problem) but now it brings up the question why this is happening... 


A2091 on an A2000.    540 meg SCSI Quantum HD.   Drive tests good with no errors on PC or Amiga, verifying sectors and bad blocks.    However randomly when I copy files on the Amiga from this drive to a second drive, whether internal 2nd SCSI drive OR internal 2nd SCSI drive or to something like a Jaz or Zip drive, the drive will sudden just run on a file until it fills the HD completely and then errors with out of space.

If I delete that last file it was copying, (which takes it a long time because the file is now the size of the HD itself), I get all the space back and if I try again the same file will copy just fine.  So it is not a file specific issue... This happens randomly any time I copy a bunch of files.   I can do this in shell manually copying, using DOPUS or even drag and drop on Workbench.

Anyone have any idea what this might be caused by?


Original issue I wrote about:


Original issue for my post:     back again..  Was nearly done getting this A2000 rebuilt.  Had everything running great.  Yesterday, I upgraded the Agnus (NTSC) and Denise to ECS versions.  Those test out and work just fine.  However, after the first boot, I must have bad seated one of the memory boards I put back in and ended up with a initial machine wig out caused crash to weird diagonal display on monitor, type situation.    Powered down, pulled the memory boards, reseated them and it then booted up fine again.   However the machine now acts like it lost 75% of the Workbench files.  I.E. most will not execute and are not recognized as a program anymore.  Everything from the simple stuff like calculator to text edit to just about every other executable, all error as invalid files and won't run.


Anyhow ever seen anything like this before?   I am on 3.2, latest kickstart 47.xx and as I said, just did the agnus and denise upgrade.   


*DISCLAIMER:  Do this next stuff at your own risk.


For anyone thinking of doing that upgrade, it can be very confusing on the exact right steps because there is a lot of conflicting information out there. 


NOTE, for rev 4.x/5.x boards NTSC, simply remove old Agnus, plug in new agnus, move jumper J101 to pin 1-2 shorted, cut J500 pad.  That's it.   DO NOT cut J102 to remain NTSC.   If you are PAL, set the J101 jumper to pin 1-2 short, cut J102 and cut J500 as well. 


For Rev 6 boards, It is the same thing but note the jumpers are NOT in the same locations so be very sure which jumpers and pads you are working with on rev 6 boards.  Move J101 to 1-2 short, LEAVE J102 shorted, remove jumper from J500 for NTSC.   For PAL, cut J102.

[Malakie]

Am a little suspicious that the files are complete enough to load Workbench, but the icons don't operate.

How about shell?

And the first rule of having a good booting system - copy it somewhere with the clone option and stash it safe.

It could be malware, it could be a glitched file (one file gone bad can mean a validation issue).

Shell works but nothing I try to execute or run does..   Same error for just about everything.    And yea, I am well aware of that rule!  LOL     Problem is I was JUST finishing up the machine setup and install when this happened.  I literally powered it up to test the new agnus and denise, run a diagnostic and the next step was to back up the drive for emergency.

Even in my days at Commodore, I never saw anything like this.   And since I am relatively new and playing catch up these days to the new 3.2 and higher OS and hardware, it is a learning experience in that regard.


But on this one.. you got me what happened..  I ran Disksalv 4 and it reports NO errors too.  Even for files, it says they are all fine.    I thought maybe the execute bit had somehow been altered but that all checks out fine to.

I just wiped the drive and started new again.   It is almost like when that ram card was not seated correctly and I got that power on weird screen, that it somehow screwed up the validation of files or the memory allocation itself.   I don't know.. which is why I asked.

[Malakie]

An update.  The earlier problem was caused because a file was corrupted and the Amiga filled the drive full so it had 0 space remaining.

Which is now the next problem.

A2091 on an A2000.    540 meg Quantum HD.   Drive tests good with no errors on PC or Amiga, verifying sectors and bad blocks.    However randomly when I copy files, the drive will sudden just run on a file until it fills the HD completely and then errors with out of space.

If I delete that last file it was copying, (which takes it a long time because the file is now the size of the HD itself), I get all the space back and if I try again the same file will copy just fine.  So it is not a file specific issue... This happens randomly any time I copy a bunch of files.   I can do this in shell manually copying, using DOPUS or even drag and drop on Workbench.

Anyone have any idea what this might be caused by?

[Malakie]

Limitations in the scsi.device? What controller device is used here anyways?

A2091, updated 7.0 roms.  Just this drive and one other attached OR just this one and an external JAZ drive attached.   Either config, this happens so it is not that.  Also the other two A2091's I have do this as well under OS 3.2.  I should not this does NOT happen under 2.04 and the older kickstart.

[Malakie]

Have tried multiple drives including CF cards.  Same result.   This issue is driving be nuts because it makes no sense at all.

[Malakie]

what 2091 rom version are you using?

 is there ram onboard the 2091?

Is scsi termination correct?

Is it possible you have a virus?

are you using SCSI DIRECT checked off in hdtoolbox?

A2091, 7.0 roms, SCSI termination is active, one board I tried has 2 meg ram, the other 2091 does not have ram as it is an older model.  It is not a virus being these machines spent 30 years in storage and the only updates are the A2091 roms, the kickstart and OS 3.2 so far and clean install from a master CD I bought direct.   Oh I added a gotek drive to DF1 as well.   SCSI direct IS checked.. I can't remember if I tried it unchecked but am going to do that now since you reminded me.


I think I already did but just to be safe will do so again.  Either way the A2091 can use SCSI direct and is SCSI II compliant.

[Malakie]

Bear in mind you have a scsi,device in the ROMs - and the 3.2 scsi.device in the Kickstart.

You can type "version scsi.device" to find out if it's V37 (WB 2 era) or V47 (I think that's right for 3.2).

V47 but good point to consider for others not aware of this issue!

[Malakie]

... Nah. The wrong version wouldn't boot at all.

I still reckon it's a buggy version 3 controller chip causing the issue.

On smaller (<128MB) drives nobody noticed, but when bigger drives arrived, people started having these sort of problems.

Even with V7 ROMs, there's a size limitation.

2.20 * Why does HDToolBox limit partitions on the A2091/A590 to 4 GB?

This happens because even the latest version 7.0 ROM for the A2091/A590 controller does not support partitions greater than 4GB.

HDToolBox will automatically limit the allocable drive capacity to 4GB. This is to protect users who may not have a file system supporting "SCSI Direct Transfer", or who don't know how to enable  this SCSI Direct option with the FastFileSystem.

However, if you feel confident that you have both, then you can override this protection by setting "LIMIT_4GBYTE=OFF" in the HDToolBox's Tool Types. Another option is to purchase the latest version of the third-party GuruROM upgrade for the A2091/A590.

From;-
http://aminet.net/docs/help/AmigaOS_3.2-FAQ.txt

I think you are right and what has been in my head now for a the last few days.. I have tried every trick I can think of from back in the day when I was with Commodore to the stuff you all have suggested.  That only leaves one possible option.  The 7.x and higher are supposed to support 4 GB+ but there is a bug that is not allowing the copy process to complete properly.   In some ways, it is almost like it is too fast copying files so that it is not able to validate or clear its buffer quickly enough on each file.

It acts like it gets into a buffer lock sometimes, other times it loops until the file increases the size to fill the entire HD.


I have been reducing the size of the partitions.  Down to 2 GB now and still seeing the problem.   Ironically, on the other machine that has older slow mechanical HD's, I have seen this as well but rarely and only if I try to copy a large amount of files at the same time.


But I don't think the size limit is the problem.  This HD is 540 meg, I also have a 270meg and a 4 gb hd partitioned into two 2gb partitions..  I am using 2 gb CF cards if I also plug those in.   I Have 3 sets of 7.0 roms, a 6.6 and an 8.0 version (unreleased).    I have four A2091 cards.  All exhibit this issue under OS 3.2 and the 3.2 kickstart installed.  If I drop to 2.04, I have to use smaller partitions but this problem disappears.

[Malakie]

One other thing it could be - from (I think 2.1) onwards, you had to add a clone directive to a copy command to preserve all the flags (like, file executable, editable, deletable, archived).

In old shell;-

COPY ALL DH0:/ Backuip:/Latestworkbench

Became

COPY DH0:/ BackupL/Latestworkbench CLONE

That could also a a factor here.

https://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/AmigaOS_Manual:_AmigaDOS_Command_Reference#COPY   <It's V4 but accurate for example

That should be automatic.   But remember, this also happens with WB copy drag and drop, DOPUS and a couple other tools I tried and of course shell copy.