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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: CU_AMiGA on December 01, 2003, 11:31:33 AM

Title: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: CU_AMiGA on December 01, 2003, 11:31:33 AM
It would seem my "Hard drive Curse" has struck again. :boohoo:  :cry:

The Smartfilesystem message I got was a diskblock error (i think, or was it a bootblock error?). Saying there was an unexpected block at xxxxxxx when expected block was at xxxxxxxxx. This happened when i was listening to MP3, and the system crashed. Plus it would reboot the first time again.

What does this mean and how can i tackle it? I think i may have to bloody set up my Hard Drive again.

Thanks in advance
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: PMC on December 01, 2003, 11:53:26 AM
I had similar problems with SFS, so much so that I went back to the FFS bundled with OS3.9....

I had a similar problem whereby the Guru struck when my A1200 was accessing an SFS formatted partition.  The system would then throw a Guru again upon reboot, so the only way I could get the OS to load was to disable the offending partition in the boot menu, load WB and then repartition using HDToolBox.

Obviously I made sure that SFS was installed as per the instructions, and I made sure that I reformatted the drive after installing the file system but the problem persistantly reoccurred.

SFS seems to "dislike" certain hard drives as my old 420MB Western Digital drive - formatted under SFS seems to survive unscathed every time.

Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: CU_AMiGA on December 01, 2003, 12:12:33 PM
Thanks for the reply.

Oh no! That crappy Maxtor HD i got. I knew i should have gotten a Samsung one. So there is nothing else in can do? The reason i changed to SFS is because FFS kept getting Checksum errors.
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: PMC on December 01, 2003, 12:18:47 PM
Maybe SFS gets snotty with larger capacity drives?

If it's any help, my Fujitsu 4.3GB drive suffered the symptoms I described with SFS, as did my 13GB Seagate.  

Checksum errors are a b*st*rd and I know how you feel with them!  However, FFS seems to be a lot more robust under OS3.9 than it did way back when.

I bought biggers drives than I acutally needed and mirrored each of my three partitions so that if one dies then I can restore the data via my floppy disk copy of Directory Opus in the event of losing my boot partition.  If it's any help I'd urge you not to use the "Quick Format" option when setting up new drives as this always leads to trouble.  

Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: Brian Hoskins on December 01, 2003, 12:33:39 PM
Do you own a Powerflyer, by any chance? I have recently suffered some nasty HD read error problems and after much stress I found that the problem lay with the PIO setting and quality of cables used.

I have two HDs in my system, a Seagate40GB and a Maxtor40GB.  The seagate works at PIO5 with no complaints, but the Maxtor complains bitterly at that level.  I turned both drives down to PIO4, and replaced the IDE cable with a type recommended by a friend (ATA66 I think it was) and all has been fine since.

I use PFS... but like you was getting errors with FFS previously.

Hope this helps
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: CU_AMiGA on December 01, 2003, 12:39:19 PM
Hi Brian,

You know i have a Power Flyer! I have been emailing you! ;-) Check my profile! :-)
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: Jope on December 01, 2003, 12:39:44 PM
Quote
If it's any help I'd urge you not to use the "Quick Format" option when setting up new drives as this always leads to trouble.


Quick Formatting is always recommended, especially if you have over 4GB partitions.

Some format commands don't support long partitions and they wrap around at some point. Not good. Quick Format always works.

If the disk is knackered, then a full format won't help either.. Time to plug it in a PC, fill it with FAT partitions and run Spinrite to see if that can liven it up a bit.

Bad sectors have a tendency to multiply on a disk. Even after spinrite, I wouldn't trust the disk after that.
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: CU_AMiGA on December 01, 2003, 12:42:06 PM
It could be the PIO settings. I will have another go at it tonight and format all the partitions properly. As i have nothing to lose at the moment. There seems to be a mixed reaction about wether to QUICK FORMAT or FULL FORMAT the partitons.

Thanks again guys,

-edit-

I also brought a fairly new IDE cable off a mate so i am guessing it isn't that is it? I do own a Power Flyer by the way.
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: Piru on December 01, 2003, 01:40:39 PM
Quote
There seems to be a mixed reaction about wether to QUICK FORMAT or FULL FORMAT the partitons.

No, there isn't.

Always quickformat.
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: Framiga on December 01, 2003, 02:05:08 PM
Hi CU_AMIGA

check or replace the flat cable and try to change the MaxTransfer.

Ciao

Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: CU_AMiGA on December 01, 2003, 02:09:08 PM
@piru,

A couple of people have already said about FULL FORMAT, as well as others saying QUICK FORMAT.

@framiga

Change Max Transfer to what? Is the answer in the docs?!? I kept the default setting from Amiga OS 3.9 FFS Max Transfer setting.

Thanks for the replies folks :-)
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: Framiga on December 01, 2003, 02:11:25 PM
@ Piru

sorry Piru but not always :-)

If you have some troubles with PFS and SFS, it is better to do a fullformat.

Remember that with SFS, you can do a FULL format ONLY using the Format command of AOS. (SFSFormat do only Quick format).

Ciao

Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: CU_AMiGA on December 01, 2003, 02:17:05 PM
@framiga,

AHA! That might explain it. What about the Max Transfer then?!
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: Framiga on December 01, 2003, 02:25:15 PM
Hi CU_AMIGA

my setup is:

MASK= 0x7FFFFFFE

MaxTransfer= 0x0001FE00  (IIRC like you)

Take a large LHA archive (>5MB), copy it to RAM: and then again to the HD and unarchive it.

Try a couple of times and check the integrity.

If it is corrupted, probably you must change the MazTransfer for ALL your partition.

Don't change the MASK (or you'll loose all your data).

Try this MaxTransfer: 0x7FFFFFFF  


PS- wich FS do you use on the other partition?
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: CU_AMiGA on December 01, 2003, 02:40:05 PM
@framiga,

Thanks. I use SFS on all my partitons. So i would just need to change the Max Transfer and nothing else?

I think my current Max Transfer is: 0x7FFFFFFE
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: Piru on December 01, 2003, 03:07:54 PM
@Framiga
Quote
If you have some troubles with PFS and SFS, it is better to do a fullformat.

That is not true. From filesystem's perspective it makes no difference if the partition is filled with random data or DOS+ (the pattern Format command fills the partition with). You never need to do a full format for a harddisk before initializing the filesystem with ACTION_FORMAT.

In fact, the filesystem is in 100% identical state after fullformat and quickformat. Quickformat is faster and safer.

Quote
Remember that with SFS, you can do a FULL format ONLY using the Format command of AOS. (SFSFormat do only Quick format).

This is a potentially dangerous advice, as it only applies to OS 3.5+ and with NSD cabable devices. For example Phase5 device drivers know TD64 only (however, OS 3.5/3.9 format-command should then fail when it tries to format past >4gig. I haven't tried this however, I don't have a HD to spare).

If you use pre-3.5 Format command for partition residing even partially past 4gig limit, you WILL overwrite the RDB and some partition(s) below the 4gig limit.

As you never need to do a fullformat anyway, it is adviced to always use quickformat. The only even remotely good reason to use fullformat is to get rid of old filesystem structure so that in case of an emergency, no old files/data is found when doing recovery.
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: CU_AMiGA on December 01, 2003, 03:18:06 PM
There is only one way to sort this out....

VOTE! (http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=5434)

:lol:
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: Framiga on December 01, 2003, 03:45:52 PM
@ Piru

 . . .as usual, you have forgotten the 4 "magic letters" at the end of your post:

. . . . . .IMHO. :-)

Ciao
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: CU_AMiGA on December 01, 2003, 03:53:45 PM
Steady guys! - We don't want a fight do we! :-)
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: Piru on December 01, 2003, 03:55:16 PM
@Framiga

I am just stating the information I know to be factual. If I am wrong, someone should prove me wrong [or at least point out where my mistake is - Edit -].

I'm very interested to hear why fullformat should be used, however.
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: Framiga on December 01, 2003, 04:07:14 PM
@Piru

right . . .should be used ONLY in some special situation as the CU_AMIGA one it is.

CU_AMIGA, is a couple of month that has problem with its new HD.

He has tryed pratically ALL without luck.

As all of us should know, it doesn't exists 2 systems that works in the same way even if apparently they are the same.

and for the full format, in this particular situation (even if i'm still thinking that could be a flat cable related problem), a full format COULD be the job (as reported even on PFS3 docs).

Obviously . . .IMHO :-)

Ciao
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: Piru on December 01, 2003, 04:15:30 PM
That sounds like a HW problem with Power Flyer to me.

CU_AMIGA could try using the hard disk without PowerFlyer, just to see if the problem persists. Certainly it's much slower, but it would help if the problem could be narrowed down.
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: CU_AMiGA on December 01, 2003, 04:26:26 PM
@Piru,

It could be the Power Flyer :-( The problem is, i can seem to listen to mp3 or play games on HD for an hour or so, then all hell breaks loose. I get that error message and then it freezes. Meaning a reboot, and i even get the error message on startup. Meaning another reboot. Sometimes, i would have to leave the damn thing off for 5 mins for it to reboot again. I don't think it would be a good idea to boot up Hard Drive without Power Flyer, as its 30gig. Oh yeah, i forgot. I also have a "spare" 1.7gig Hard Drive, and i also get checksum errors on that as well.

In other words, sometimes it would be working, then out of the blue all hell would break loose. To be honest, i don't know what's wrong. I thought it was Hard Drive, A1200 mobo, Power Flyer, RAM and even my PPC Accelerator!

It doesn't sound to good.

-edit-

The Power Flyer is also firmly strapped into place via the plastic clamp.
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: Framiga on December 01, 2003, 04:37:21 PM
Hi CU_AMIGA

from PFS3.guide:

"A PFS3 volume can be formatted just like a FFS volume. It is even possible
to use the 'quick' format option on a volume that used to be a FFS volume.
It is tempting to use quick format since it is a very fast way to format
your disk. There is a problem with quick format, though: it leaves a lot of
mess behind. For normal operation this is no problem at all. But in the
unfortunate event that the disk gets faulty and needs to be repaired, it is
a lot easier to recover data if the volume was fully formatted and
initialised, not using the quick option."


By the way . . ..which kind of PSU do you have?

Your system is quite heavy.

Ciao

Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: CU_AMiGA on December 01, 2003, 04:39:10 PM
@Framiga,

The PSU is the default Power Tower one - 250
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: Piru on December 01, 2003, 04:45:10 PM
@CU_AMiGA

Ok, this sounds like a HW problem somewhere.

The thing is, these issues hardly get better by themselves, so you need to do something.

First of all you should create as clean as possible OS and software installation (no hacks or patches unless absolutely necessary), and get the problem reproduced on that. Once you manage to trigger the problem, make sure it is consistent (for example that you always get the problem after 3 hours). This is the base system used to track the hw problem later. Now backup this testsystem so you can restore it 100% identical when needed.

I suggest you strip down as much HW extensions as possible (while the system is still usable), and then lauch the testsuite. If the problem persists, then the still connected components are to blame. Check PSU, memory, motherboard and so on. If the problem is gone, you now have isolated the problem to extensions you have just removed. Now you can put some of the expansions back (perhaps half of them) and see if the problem come back. And so forth, I bet you've got the idea by now.

Anyway, once you've found out the component that causes the problem, verify your findings by doing extra 5-10 tests with both with and without the component connected. Hopefully the final tests verify your finding and you can replace the faulty hardware.

Now, the thing gets much more complicated if the problem is combination of several components, but even in this case you should be able to find a stable setup.
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: CU_AMiGA on December 01, 2003, 04:52:58 PM
@Piru,

Looks as though i have no choice really. :-( Not good.
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: Piru on December 01, 2003, 05:01:31 PM
@Framiga

Like the guide says, the only reason you might want to fullformat is to make sure there are no remains of the previous filesystem left on the disk.

However, at least PFSDoctor is smart enough to find only the latest filesystem on the disk (most PFS filesystem blocks have sequence number on them, so PFSDoctor can find the matching filesystem structure blocks).

Obviously fullformat doesn't help if the disk is physically dead, or if the problem is elsewhere in the hardware. However, in this case it might help identify the physical HD fault before valuable user data is written (and deleted from the copy source!) on the disk.

However, if the suspected problem is not on the hard disk, it makes little sense to do full format.

Personally when I setup a new disk I create the partitions, reboot, quickformat, set filesystem attributes (max filename length, deldir size), and then copy the files over from the old disk. Finally I do checksum checks for the copied files, to see if everything is alright. I keep the old hard disk for backup purposes.
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: x56h34 on December 01, 2003, 05:10:11 PM
I have MaxTransfer currecntly set to 0x0001FE00, and when I try 0x7FFFFFFF, it always returns to the first one after I SAVE in HDToolBox. I am running OS3.9-BB2 and SFS as the filesystem.

How do I make 0x7FFFFFFF stick?
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: CU_AMiGA on December 01, 2003, 05:18:53 PM
Quote

x56h34 wrote:
I have MaxTransfer currecntly set to 0x0001FE00, and when I try 0x7FFFFFFF, it always returns to the first one after I SAVE in HDToolBox. I am running OS3.9-BB2 and SFS as the filesystem.

How do I make 0x7FFFFFFF stick?


AH! I had this problem as well. You have to press enter/return after entering the fields.
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: x56h34 on December 01, 2003, 05:23:45 PM
Hmmm...will try that tonight. ;-)
Thanks for the input.
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: CU_AMiGA on December 01, 2003, 05:26:04 PM
my pleasure :-)
Title: Re: More HD Trouble ;-(
Post by: CU_AMiGA on December 02, 2003, 10:26:08 AM
I typed down the new Max Transfer value and i have had no trouble yet. I was listening to mp3 for about 1 hour and a bit yesterday and now checksum or disk block error as yet. But the Amiga is still in bits and will stay like that until i am satisfied and give it a thorough testing. The only error i got was under AmigaAmp, something about a buffer problem. I have never had that before.