Error when trying to copy files from Dopus

[Matt_H]

Sounds like a filesystem problem. I'm not sure what repair/recovery tools are available for PFS, but be prepared for the possibility that you might need to copy everything to another partition and reformat.

[Matt_H]

You can use whatever you want for the backup. If there's any possibility of mechanical drive failure (how old is the drive?) you should plug the drive into WinUAE and copy everything to a hardfile. Otherwise you can do a local backup to another partition on the same disk. Once you're confident your data has been preserved, reformat the affected partition and copy everything back.

Make sure you preserve the protection bits and datestamps when copying. If you're using the shell, use the CLONE argument on the copy command. I think DOpus has this option enabled by default.

[Matt_H]

Its a 32GB CF card, less that 6 months old. Okay I have tested moving a folder from one location to another on the system partition and that works okay. So it seems its just the Games partition is having issues.

Very likely to be a filesystem problem, then. I'm assuming the drive is properly partitioned and using a >4GB-capable device driver? (use Thomas's check4gb if you are unsure.) If so, backup, reformat, and restore and you should be up and running.

There's still a small possibility the CF card is faulty and failed prematurely. Do a full drive backup with WinUAE if you have any irreplaceable data, just to be safe.

[Matt_H]

Since there’s currently a filesystem error, simply restoring the disk image you made will also restore the filesystem error. Like I said above, all you need to do is copy the contents of your games partition to another partition, reformat, and copy back.

Set up a hardfile in WinUAE with enough capacity to hold the contents of your games partition. Then copy everything to that hardfile using either DOpus or the shell (copy gamespartition:#? backuppartition: all clone).

I’m assuming that the error on your games partition prevents writing to the partition but that you can still read from it. If you can’t read it, i.e., if you can’t copy the files off, you’ll need to look into a fix-in-place utility to correct the filesystem error, but that’s beyond my knowledge for PFS.

[Matt_H]

Since there’s currently a filesystem error, simply restoring the disk image you made will also restore the filesystem error. Like I said above, all you need to do is copy the contents of your games partition to another partition, reformat, and copy back.

As I've seen this a couple of times now, can I just point out that you are missing the crucial step 2 in the procedure.

1. Backup
2. Verify your backup
3. Format
4. Restore

Noone wants a write-only backup to be their only copy of important data.

Best regards,

Niels

Excellent point. I did mention it in an earlier post but it's always worth repeating.

[Matt_H]

How did you prep your hard drive and install PFS initially? The procedure is virtually the same.
The summary version is:
1. Extract pfs3aio.lha
2. Copy pfs3aio to L:
3. Open HDToolbox
4. In the partitioning screen, choose Add/Update Filesystem
5. Select the existing PFS, choose Update
6. Select L:pfs3aio
7. Save changes and reboot.

The details will vary slightly depending on your OS version. There may be other things you need to adjust, e.g., DOSType, but hopefully not. Either way, it sounds like you're not very familiar with this kind of procedure, in which case you should make absolutely sure that you have a full drive backup in case something goes wrong.