A1200 suddenly shows "df4:" and "Pc4:" and hd doesn't start anymore

[SimonV]

Last night I was trying to read some disks on my df1: drive connected to my a1200. Suddenly a DF4: showed up on the workbench ? I rebooted and now my harddisk doesn't boot anymore. The HD still shows up in hdtoolbox when I reboot from the 3.9 emergency disc but there it says it isn't partitioned.... anyone has an idea what happened ? Virus ?

Also that "df4:" did show up when I booted from the emergency disc ... I even didn't know an AMiga could have a df4: ? Also PC4: showed up the first time it occured.

Help ...

[SimonV]

Well that about not using upgraded devices with big harddrives isn't impossible either. I had 2 partitions with PFS3. 300Mb Workbench and 55GB Work. I had IDEFIX97 installed on the Workbench (altough when I enquire scsi.device version it seems to be still the same) and when I ran CheckWB it told me the big drive was "ok"

About the floppy reading. I was just trying to open it's ICON from WB. Strange thing was that DF4: still showed up when I booted from the OS3.9 emergency disc.

More details about my machine. A1200 with Blizzard 030 with SCSIkit and an external scandoubler. IDEFIX97 to get my telmex PCMCIA drive working. OS3.1 with MagicWB, Mui3.8, MultiCX, Swazinfo, MagicMenu and WBstartup+ and Newicons in C: run from the startupsequence without installing it so my system also shows NewIcons correctly with loosing the MagicWB

I guess I better make use of Blizzkick to upgrade the scsi.device and start all over again. Only pity I made a backup of my dh0: on to my dh1: ... wich is ofcours lost now.

[SimonV]

The HD is connected to the internal A1200 IDE port. It's 2.5" 60GB harddrive.

I didn't know it was recoverable and I might be a little impatient ;-) . I was still in the process building up the Workbench so not too much really lost there.

I also used the original PFS3 released by the author on Aminet if that's important ? Not sure I already want put my time in versions that are altered afterwards by others.

So when I restart: I am probably better of making sure I have the upgraded scsi.device running out of OS3.9 ? I really don't want to run OS3.9 on my 50Mhz 68030 ... it feels so slow.

[SimonV]

Then I really don't know what went wrong there. Idefix97 was installed with it's installer, but I think that one puts it in the user-startup ?

But how does 3.9 not help with PFS3 ? It does have the support for big partitions not ?

[SimonV]

I get really confused by this.

So a clean A1200 install with OS3.1 and PFS3 needs what to work correctly ?

When i install IDEfix97, I can't find a newer scsi.device anywhere and it still reports the old one when I query it.

[SimonV]

So if I understand well the absence of that line messed up my HD ?

[SimonV]

Well I suppose that using that old os3.1 scsi.device on 55Gb formatted disc wasn't a good start anyway. It's now up and running again with PFS3 partitions AND with that IDEfix scsi.device activated in the startup-sequence. And when it happens again I know who to contact now:-)

[SimonV]

And it happened again today ... I was just swapping some PCMCIA device and that started saying my CF0: was "not dos" .. wich it obviously is and again df4: shows up.

When I boot from my OS3.9 emergency  disc, hdtoolbox says the drive isn't installed and also df4: shows up... something that otherwise doesn't happen.

Now I am sure the scsi.device from IDEFIX97 was activated and also pfs3 can't be the problem ..I think.

So I guess the RDB is gone again ... but can I restore that without loosing my partitions ? ANd what is causing this in the first place ?

[SimonV]

I can connect it with a USB adapter to both x86 with winuae or Powermac with MorphOS. The A1200 also can connect to the net with a 3com PCMCIA adapter and I think I have a bootdisc with Amitcp4 on it somewhere

[SimonV]

Well I did this on the "real" amiga... All I retrieved is an unreadable DH1: partition. Dh0: didn't return so far.

Now I have to find a way to get that file on my emergency disc back to media that my windowsmachine can use.

[SimonV]

Now it's getting really strange ... I fired up another A1200 to transfer that dump.bin on to my cfcard that is FAT formatted and it also is suddenly unformatted .. and yes it was in the A1200 when it crashed. I really start thinking towards virus here.

Anyway the file is attached now

[SimonV]

amazing sentence , that last one ... I used a floppydisk with XCOPY 8.5 two minutes before the crash ...

Merry Xmas ... a-holes whoever wrote it back then.

[SimonV]

Ok I learned it the hard way I shouldn't test/check floppydisks I get from strangers who's Amiga I bought for a humble 10 euro ... that's where the xcopy disc came from.

That said can't I backup my RDB some way to put it back afterwards when things like this happen ?

[SimonV]

Amazing, I got my partitions back without losing anything. You deserve a medal.

About infection. Isn't the virus still on my HD ? Luckily most of my floppys are write protected so not much work there.