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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: CU_AMiGA on October 13, 2003, 12:58:07 PM
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Hello!
I was tucking into my tuna and pasta meal (yum! yum!) and turned on my Amiga and was about to have a game of Wipeout 2097, when something was bothering me..........
The Workbench screen loaded up, but i got a requester saying "Workbench (partition) has a checksum error at xxxxxxx". Spitting out peices of pasta, due to the shock, i had to clean up the mess and look at the problem. Anyway, this meant that i could not open up any games or programs, due to this error. But after i left the machine on for 5 minutes, the problem seems to solve itself. I am glad to say that my Amiga now works okay.
But this not the first time this problem has occured, and i fear it may happen again, and may wreck further havok on my beloved Amiga, just after i have sorted out the problems concerning Warp and Power Up.
So, can anyone tell me what could possibly cause this problem and how can i put a stop to it. Before its too late! Put me out of my misery please!
Regards,
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Are you using FFS ?
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I am using the software that cam with the power flyer and Amiga OS 3.9. So i think so yes.
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@CU_AMiGA
backup soon your boot partition.
Then double check your EIDE flat cable and . . .reformat (QUICK) the partition.
Sometimes these checksum errors, occours with a wrong MaxTransfer value also.
Ciao
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Framiga wrote:
@CU_AMiGA
backup soon your boot partition.
Then double check your EIDE flat cable and . . .reformat (QUICK) the partition.
Sometimes these checksum errors, occours with a wrong MaxTransfer value also.
Ciao
Oh no! That sounds a bit extreme! :-( Is this the only way? I will do it if i have to. Wouldn't a full format work better than a quick format, as this is what i done before. Also, would i have to worry about the Hard Drive settings?! I thinm the IDE cable is okay, as it is red bit points the same way as the CDROM IDE cable, and that works fine.
Thanks,
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If it works at all, the cable is in the right way. As long as you make a full backup of your system every week or so, you could leave it until it has a permanent error before reformatting.
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That happens normaly when the Amiga turns off while accessing the disk.
Normaly no problem if You are carefully whilst switching off - but it could happen when a guru or systemlock appears.
Did U recognize a slower bootprocess the first time?
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http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/~aminet/disk/misc/SoftRaid.readme (http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/~aminet/disk/misc/SoftRaid.readme)
:-) Dying to try this
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Install turboval (available from aminet) just in case your disk gets invalid (works with FFS only)
Lio
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@ xeron
but please . . .i wasn't speaking about a wrong insertion of the cable but a failure or a bad contacts of the flat cable!!! eh!!
With those kind of random checksum errors, the flat cable is one of the first thing to check (the integrity)
Ciao
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xeron wrote:
If it works at all, the cable is in the right way. As long as you make a full backup of your system every week or so, you could leave it until it has a permanent error before reformatting.
Thats exactly what i thought!
Borut wrote:
That happens normaly when the Amiga turns off while accessing the disk.
Normaly no problem if You are carefully whilst switching off - but it could happen when a guru or systemlock appears.
Did U recognize a slower bootprocess the first time?
That might explain it. I can't see whether my Hard Drive is accessing or not sometimes, cos the little LED cable that connects between the Power Flyer and pin 38 on the IDE (if i remember) didn't work. And it normally does happen after a system lock, not guru though. I have only had a slow boot-up process once. And thats when i has to use the Amiga OS 3.9 emergency disk to see what the devil was going on. Fixed itself in the end though, like i said.
T_Bone wrote:
http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/~aminet/disk/misc/SoftRaid.readme (http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/~aminet/disk/misc/SoftRaid.readme)
:-) Dying to try this
lionstorm wrote:
Install turboval (available from aminet) just in case your disk gets invalid (works with FFS only)
Lio
Will do! Thanks.
Framiga wrote:
@ xeron
but please . . .i wasn't speaking about a wrong insertion of the cable but a failure or a bad contacts of the flat cable!!! eh!!
With those kind of random checksum errors, the flat cable is one of the first thing to check (the integrity)
Ciao
How would i definately know this and how would i go about this?
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CU_AMIGA wrote:
How would i definately know this and how would i go about this?
if the flat cable is old, replace it :-) (the cheaper and safest way)
Anyway, if you want to do a good job, backup your SYS: partition and reformat (why not in SFS).
Good luck :-)
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Framiga wrote:
CU_AMIGA wrote:
How would i definately know this and how would i go about this?
if the flat cable is old, replace it :-) (the cheaper and safest way)
Anyway, if you want to do a good job, backup your SYS: partition and reformat (why not in SFS).
Good luck :-)
I don't think it is the cable. It is only a couple of months old and i brought it off a mate who is into computers. I will back-up all my SYS: partition and reformat. Don't know whether to do this quick or full format though. What is SFS, another file system? Is it better than the one i currently use, the one in Amiga OS 3.9, i think its FFS.
Regards,
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It could also be that the drive is wearing out ?. :-)
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amigamad wrote:
It could also be that the drive is wearing out ?. :-)
Oh no! :-( That has really turned the tables around! I hope not, the Hard Drive was only made last year and i purchased it this year off AmiBench, along with the Blizzard PPC!
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@T_Bone
SoftRaid! cool!
anyone has tried it?
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CU_AMiGA wrote:
I was tucking into my tuna and pasta meal...
You were FU..? :-o
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I used to have this problem with worrying regularity back when I just had an a1200 with a 2.5" HD - especially with game installs. I always found the best thing to do was to load up Disksalv. You can download earlier versions of Haynie's baby and get it to fix disk problems. It works very well and i'm sure will solve your problem. It's on aminet.
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If I was you I would install PFS or SFS. SFS can be found on Aminet, but I haven't tried it yet. I have only heard good things about it though.
I use PFS2 on my A1200T, and since I've installed it I haven't had 1 checksum error at all, and I installed it in december or so.
The checksum error will come if the computer uses ffs and resets while accesing the disk. The long boot time is when the disk validates itself, but it can't do the trick everytime. Sometimes you'r stuck with a partion you can only salvage by formatting it.
I tried doing the claw while I was accesing my PFS hdd, and nothing happend. It just started up without any errors, and I've tested it a couple of times.
I prefer PFS over FFS as it's more reliable, and the docs claim that it can be up to 400% faster than FFS. I haven't got that much improvement on my drive, but it's definetely faster.
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SFS filesystem is superior to FFS in terms of speed and reliability, but requires 68020 or better processor (tbc. not 68000/68010). It does currently lack a few features that FFS has, so if you are not sure whether something can be done on SFS volumes, consult the documentation or use another filesystem in that case. That's acceptable because it is considered beta.
Perhaps SFS isn't recommended in those cases where a successful uninterrupted boot is more important than anything (unsupervised/remote use), as it handles error situations more carefully and will impede the boot at least if the volume which is being booted from, is affected. For most users/uses however, SFS is a lot more attractive than FFS.
P.S. In the past I've lost a small amount of files that I did myself, so: always backup these at least.
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SFS I think is also on Your OS3.9 CD.
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fragment wrote:
CU_AMiGA wrote:
I was tucking into my tuna and pasta meal...
You were FU..? :-o
Yes Tuna and Pasta with tinned tomato sauce and onion is a lovely meal! I can't get enough of it! I recommend you try it! :-)
@Everyone/problem
What i will do is i will wait until i get anymore trouble or if the problem becomes permanent. I have also backed up the important conents of my hard drive so there is no worry there. If the problem continues i will try out a new file system. But which one? PFS or SFS? If those don't solve the problem then it could be the hard drive. :-(
Could it also be to do with the Power Flyer not being fully inserted? I had to install some IC Sockets to lift the Power Flyer board over the Blizzardvision but i couldn't fit them clamps around the whole thing, so i just left it! Also, the IC Socket are meant to be soldered into the Amiga IC Socket (for the ROMS). I think i have messed up a little! :-P
Hopefully, i wont spit out any pasta and tuna again if this situation don't occur again! :-)
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Oh no! It happened again! :-( This time i didn't need to reboot boot. I got that stupid checksum error message and about 10 seconds later, it was okay! But this doesn't look good at all. To make matters worse, i almost choked on a piece of bacon i was eating at the time! :-( Due to the shock!
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Maybe you should not eat while using computers :-D
Whatever the reason for the problems, though, the most important thing is to make backups. All else can wait.
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Don't worry. I have made all the important backups and put them onto a smaller Hard Drive. That was the first thing i done! :-)
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I would advice against changing filesystem until he finds out what REALLY caused it. Introducing yet another point of failure isn't a good idea.
CHECK YOUR MAXTRANSFER SETTING
CHECK YOUR CABLE
If it doesn't do it again, chalk it up as accident. If it does, you should start worrying :-)
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I am worrying! :-( How would i check the max setting, i mean, i know how to, but how would i know the max setting! (if you know what i mean!) :-) Cables are just fine. I am having curry tonight, lets hope the incident never occurs again! ;-)
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Oh dear! I turned on my beloved Amiga yesterday evening and a few seconds later i got a requester saying "Drive MDH0 is not a DOS Disk" i think it was something like that, i can't remember. MDH0 being the Workbench partition. Anyway it didn't load up Workbench, so i reseted the machine and it loaded up again no problem. I get that sinking feeling i will have to reformat the partition. Can someone please tell me how would i know the max transfer valua of my Hard Drive?!
Good job i wasn't having cornflakes at the time, like i was about to, or else i would have choked and died! :-)
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Maybe you should not eat while using computers
Aww, c'mon! I've spent hours in front of a computer, sandwiches, cups of tea, beers, glasses of wine all get devoured while sitting in front of it. I'm sure most people do it; Just like kids sitting in front of the TV to eat their dinner....
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Well, it has been two weeks now and i haven't had a repeat of that incident. Maybe that is the last i will hear from it! :-) I hope!
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I have been fighting almost the similar problem for nearly two years. Here is what is it like: whenever I am doing something that uses hard disk for a longer transfers eg 10MB or 4 minutes or similar second next volume dies. If I was defragmenting HD0: HD2: gets crushed. The same happend on two diferent HD's 200MB and 7.5GB, with or without accelerator board, on OFS or FFS, reads or writes, IDEFix or no IDEFix. Even surfing on the net showed to be hazardous.
When I try to salvage disks using QB tools then second next dies. So I Quick-Formated bad ones, run some tests, powered off Amiga and started to modify everything that i thought to be suspicious.
I have found suspicious:
FFS was anicientand and absolite.
Power connectors where covered in dark gray corosion.
Amiga and its external components where not grounded against electrostatic discharge, and flat HD cable was running dangerously near steel construction of the table.
AT power supply looked good inside, but ... grrrrr
Some custom chips are getting potatoe hot depending on pergormed task.
- File system crushes usualy doing copying using DirWork (and it was imploded to)
- I have suspected ebola virus on some floppys
- I had shrinking volume size while setting up HD on last install ( bug in FFS or hd install ?)
- My CD-ROM was anicient. It worked six hours every fifth day. I needed newer one.
Actions:
- I have updated FFS to 45.1
- I have cleaned power conectors to HD and CD-ROM from inside using piece of wire, coton and nito based disolvent to remove corosion ( watch out, it eats amiga plastic caseing )
- I have rewired GND from power supply unit to amiga, HD, CD-ROM, metal construction of the table.
- I have checked out power supply unit, connecros, voltages and replaced some electrolytic cpacitors.
- I have used some 386, 486 heatsinks and made some using 2mm and 2.5mm aluminium plates. After glueing them on custom chips and chips on accelerator chips, I made controlled air flow with some carboard, thin, duct tape. I had to add a small fan ( it is inside the case, just above F1-F2 ), and expand some holes in trap area in order to aid airflow for accelerator board.
- I have added six capacitors 1000uF each around amiga board, and two of 470uF on accelerator board. Add some more and power supply will explode.
- I have stopped using DirWork old WB1.3 software ( reason is CPU instruction that was promoted to supevisor mode on 68010+ ) and implode.library ( I will get one from aminet )
- Yes, ebola was on the Real 3D 1.4pro ( on HD-install, how convinient )
- I managed to make volume sizes just as I wanted. Nothing shrunk this time.
- I replaced old bugger with Teac 24X.
Results:
I can not format volumes using full format, volumes are still getting circulary destryed. I does not happens as often as it did before.
Amiga is not hot anymore after playing or formating.
I had some false allarms.
I can surf as lon as I want now, and I used CD's and lap link a lot with out any problems so far.
If you have similar problem I hope this post will help.