Volume DH0 not valildated

[Thomas]

@heatdave:

First of all you shouldn't need to do anything. Just watch it. The HDD light should show the HDD being very busy. Also the boot process should need about twice as long as usual. If this is true, just wait for it to finish. It should validate itself automatically. Only if in the end of the validation process you get a message like "checksum error in block xxx" or "block yyy used twice" or something like that, then it is not able to repair itself and only then you need one of the recovery tools mentioned above. But first let it finish its work.

You didn't mention your system configuration. With Kickstart 1.3 and below you need a file called Disk-Validator in the L directory of the boot drive. If the file is not present, the partition cannot validate itself. In this case, you have to boot from a Workbench floppy disk with this file in the right directory. But only on Kickstart 1.3 and below. Since Kickstart 2.0 this file is in ROM.

Bye,
Thomas

[Thomas]

I don't understand why all people here give so complicated advice. The only thing one has to do if a drive is not validated is to wait. Wait for it to finish its own attempt to repair itself. Only if, really only if an error message appears you need to do your own recover actions.

Nobody here, especially not Heatdave mentioned an error message and what the message says. So either it is already ok now or it is still working. In the latter case, wait a little bit longer. It should not need more than five minutes, then the drive is ok again. Without any manual action. Just don't switch it off in the middle, because then it will start from the beginning again.

Regarding DiskSalv, it offers an option to repair the partition. But usually if you repair a partition, some file are lost. The first run of DiskSalv should always be Salvage in order to backup all files to another partition or another drive. Only if you are sure that all important files are saved, you should try the repair. Repair always has the usability of the partition as priority. Files which can only partially be repaired will deleted without the chance to get them back. Only Salvage has the priority to save all files, even those which are only partially available. This applies to all recovery tools. In-place repair is not a good choice when attempting to rescue important data.

Bye,
Thomas

[Thomas]

I never understood this. What good is a partial file, anyhow?? You're going to have to recover that file from backups one way or another. Might just as well do it from the start.

If you don't have a backup of an important file (e.g. because you were editing it right when the crash happened), then you are glad about any part which can be rescued.

However, "partially" in my post might not necessarily mean the data is only partially left but that perhaps there are some inconsistencies in the file system structure but the data is fully intact. FFS has many pointers between blocks. Salvage mode might be able to recover a file which cannot be repaired in-place.

Additionally Salvage mode does not alter the damaged partition. So even if DiskSalv fails to recover the file, you can try another program or even send the HDD to an expert who can write a program especially for your case.

Once you ran an in-place repair, the file system will be usable again, but files which are deleted during the repair are lost forever. There is no expert who can recover deleted files from a repaired file system structure.

I had cases where DiskSalv in repair mode cleared an entire partition, as if it was quick-formatted, while salvage mode was still able to recover most of the files.

Bye,
Thomas

[Thomas]

It's probably not DiskSalv which caused the guru, but the HDD driver, because it happened with lha, too.

How big is the drive, where is it connected to and what are the versions of the operating system and the HDD driver ?

To get a good overview, please run check4gb and posts its output here.

Bye,
Thomas