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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: leirbag28 on January 04, 2005, 10:19:55 PM
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Ok, I rebooted my Amiga while the Harddrive was still loading, causing it to become invalid or unvalidated. it says the HD is FULL at 3.9GB when infact I had only used about 500Mb. I know Disksalv usually fixes this but this HD is a 40GB laptop IDE Harddrive with about 8 partitions:
System
Workbench
Work
Work2
Work3
Work4
Work5
Work6
Work7
Work8
Work2 is the one damaged, So my question is can I use Disksalv without it overwriting other partitions?
Im not even sure my OS3.9 setup fully supports the 40Gb HD although I am using them currently.
How can I validate my Work2 Partition without ruining anything nor any partitions after it?
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Usually if you leave the amiga for a few minutes it will normally solve the validation error automatically.
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Yeah that I know.........ive done that, but its not doing it this time.
Plus all my other partitions are fine but under Discsalv they all say INVALID except for System, Workbench and Work (HD0, DH0, and HD1) the rest are read as negative numbers. but for now I am just concerned how to validate Work2?
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Disksalv can revalidate partitions on hard drives over 4GB but for some reason ends up wiping most of the data from that certain partition.
Using disksalv to revalidate the partition is not recommended.
Is the HD LED constantly on or flickering occasionally?
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Oh boy thats scary as heck
No the Harddrive light is not doing that but at bootup it keeps loading even though it should hav stopped like at my password screen.
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If the hard drive keeps loading then the system is still attempting to validate the partition.
If you were to leave the amiga sitting for about 5-10 mintues then it should solve the problem by itself.
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Like I said, its not doing that, I already tried it a few times....I am aware that it does repair itself this way, but not this time.................this has happened a few times to me with my previous HD wich was a 2.1GB HD, and I validated it with Discsalv and it worked, but I had to Valitade it twice for it to work ( takes like 8 hours!) so I know it works with HD's or at least partitions that are 2GB or a little less, But I want to fix this 3.9GB partition
How do I do it, isnt there another way besides Disksalv.............im also currently looking at DiscSalv4 wich was on my HD and I didnt even know it, but it doesnt seem to have a Validate option
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Try backing up the partition that needs validating first then running disksalv on the repair option.
If disksalv does end up wiping the partition then atleast you will have a backup to restore.
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Yeah, I can do that, But I am worried about it overwriting other partitions.
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If that is the case then it would be best to back them all up just in case.
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Thats not possible unless I have a CD burner, theres too much data already on those other partitions
And this is my CD32/SX32 pro setup we are talking about :-)
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The only other option is to look for another program that can scan or validate drives that are over 4gb.
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Why not back up the stuff and reformat the partition? Reformatting will make the drive validated and it will create a new volume bitmap.
Seems like the easiest thing to do if DiskSalv is an uncertainty.
:-)
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I believe formatting it will make it delete all the other partitions following it.............I dont want to do that
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You should wait until all disk activity STOPS. Only then can you be sure that the partition couldn't be validated. It takes ages but you HAVE to wait for ALL disk activity to stop. I encourage you to boot without startup-sequence and leave it work. A partition will only fail to validate if there are errors in the filesystem or the disk itself. In that case, backup immediately:-)
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If you have OS3.9 and using the latest FFS with scsi.device patched, you can do a quick format on Data2 and you will be fine!!!
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:-( As wonderful as DiskSalv is, it is a little dated. If I understand it correctly, DiskSalv, like Shapeshifter, drives the hardware directly as it works with your drive. Unfortunately, it also uses 32 bit addressing, and signed arithmetic at that. This means that the most significant bit is used to indicate whether the rest represent a negative or positive number. The range is still four billion and change, but it extends from negative two billion to positive two billion, with zero in the middle instead of at the low end.
Any attempt to write above the two gigabyte mark will result in the negative numbers noted above. Sadly, DiskSalv works only on voulmes below the two gigabyte mark.
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As you I'm not so sure about DiskSalv on anything other than 2GB FFS partisions in the first 4GB space of a drive so do like this:
1. Backup the data on the affected partision.
2. Format that partision.
3. Rewrite the data from the backup to the partision.
Formatting should only affect the one partision in question and not overvrite or format any other partisions when it's performed.
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This is "perfect" advertisement for alternative filesystems such as PFS3.
At least until proper FFS repair tools supporting >4GB partitions appear.
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Disksalv doesn't work with >4GB. Period.
If you desperatedly want to rescue those >4GB partitions, the one and only tool is diskmontools.lha from Aminet. But it's pretty slow, backup+format is much preferred and faster.
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Actually I just noticed that my Work2 Has a Checksum Error! whatever that means and its read as INVALID by DiskSalv
So what should I do?
It amazes me that such an important this as Validating a Partition of over 4GB doesnt exist for the Amiga??? this is astonishing? Amiga Inc need to work on this............this is utterly unacceptable!
I have Heard that Installing SCALOS lets you read and format drives > 4GB? is this true?
Then if it is, I would say WB 3.1 with SCALOS installed is better than OS 3.9
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Possibly but ScalOS doesn't have as much support since less people use it
Whereas pretty much every active Amiga user has at least OS 3.9 running now :-)
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With 3.9 FFS I have had no problems with errors; even when a crash has caused an invalid partition, it always has validated itself and with CSPPC SCSI3 it succeeds in 30 seconds - 1.5 mins. I'm using TurboVal, which lets the validate process happen in just one partition at the same time and waits for the process end before continuing. Waitforvalidate was added later to the ROM update.
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Maybe running QuarterBackTools might be an idea?
I'm not sure if it will work above the 4GB limit (ASK SOMEONE before using it ;-) ) but if your partition is having checksum errors part of the QBTools program can check for bad blocks, this in turn will rewrite the volume bitmap which in turn will make your hd valid.
I can't check QBTools on my setup as I'm using SFS (I have a spare partition set aside for testing but it's gradually became full with me just dumping stuff looking for space ;-) ).
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Maybe running QuarterBackTools might be an idea?
QuarterBackTools doesn't work with >4GB partitions.
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Piru wrote:
QuarterBackTools doesn't work with >4GB partitions.
I thought so... I did wonder why it hadn't been mentioned yet :-)
QBTools has saved my ass many a time, pity it doesn't work >4GB.
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@zipper
I am using OS3.9, and yes that usually works.........that waiting also worked in my OS3.1 when I was using that, but the Drive is having a Checksum error........but I guess thats what it says when its not validated. Does TurboVal work on Partitions and HDs bigger than 4GB?
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@leirbag28
It amazes me that such an important this as Validating a Partition of over 4GB doesnt exist for the Amiga?
I think you're mixing things a bit now.
FFS itself at least tries to validate the volume. If the filesystem is the AmigaOS 3.9 one, it handles >4GB just fine.
However the filesystem built-in validator doesn't always manage to validate the disk, and thus you might need to use external tool (DiskSalv or whatever). Unfortunately no proper external tool exists that handles >4GB.
Does TurboVal work on Partitions and HDs bigger than 4GB?
TurboVal only speed up the validation process by letting only single volume validate at a time. It doesn't do any validation by itself, and thus it has no effect on whether the validation actually works or not.
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Piru wrote:
Unfortunately no proper external tool exists that handles >4GB.
Yes, no proper but diskmontools still exists if you are desperate to salvage something >4GB.
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Well, I copied the Contents to another HD Partition and formatted Work2..............all is working Normal!
Thanks Guys!
All Done!
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Keep an eye on it, if it starts showing checksum errors again the drive might be eroding and you'll need a new one.
Hopefully not though :-)
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Haha, this drive is New..............but I am so glad that I made like 10 partitions............because only that particular partition gets unvalidated and doesnt harm my other contents................i'd hate to validate a partition larger than 2Gb..................takes way too long.