HD has been wiped out..

[AmigaMance]

Fortunately, i use this HD to backup my prime one. I'm using the internal IDE port of my Amiga, so i plug it in the second IDE channel when i want to do a backup and then i store it somewhere until the next backup. I do it about every 2 months.
 It was the time for me to do a backup and when i plugged it i saw that i couldn't see any partitions from workbench or cli. I ran HDInstTools and i saw with terror that all the partitions of this HD have vanished :nervous: and that the ID string of this HD ("manufactured" and "name" fields) was slightly altered or corrupted!! Everything was ok in the previous backup...
 This is the SECOND time that this is happening and i felt like it was time for me to open a thread about this.
 I had create 3 PFS partitions which i am now forced to set and configure from the beginning since everything was gone. I don't think that the problem is FileSystem specific, because in this case i would have got corrupted partition(s) not the whole HD wiped out. All of my HDs are seagates.
 I'm waiting for your views. Such situations could have been devastating in slightly different circumstances..

[doctorq]

If it's the second time this has happend, why would you continue using it? I wouldn't. It just ends out with your main drive going bust someday, and in the meantime your backup drive has done it as well.

[motorollin]

Sounds like a bad sector on the disk. I would replace the hard disk.

--
moto

[Homer]

You can verify the hard disk by downloading (free !) the manufacturers "Disk Fitness Test" (DFT) software, and connecting the drive to a pc. That will tell you if the manufacturer thinks its a drive problem. Note that you have to get the specific software for that type of drive. Most DFT software comes as a self booting floppy, but some now work through windoze.

[Merc]

It sounds to me more like you have a bad cable, or the connector on the drive has a bad connection to the logic board..  the manufacturer information is (AFAIK) stored on the board and shouldn't ever be corrupted no matter how many bad sectors the drive has.  Make sure your cabling is intact.

[CLS2086]

Hi,
corrupt name and references with HDDToolbox ?
look at the connectors pins if they are ok. It could be that because name and specs are on EEPROM, or the electronic on the hdd is dying.
Try to find the same and exchange the circuit to get back your data.

[AmigaMance]

@doctorq

If it's the second time this has happend, why would you continue using it? I wouldn't. It just ends out with your main drive going bust someday, and in the meantime your backup drive has done it as well.

 Yes, i also suspect a hardware malfunction but it since both HDs are of the same brand, (slightly different model) the main drive should have gone first as it is at constant usage, not the other one which is rarely used.
 But you never know with these things. :-)


@motorollin

Sounds like a bad sector on the disk. I would replace the hard disk.

 I just checked it 3 times by using the function "check drive" from HDInstTools and it didn't gave me errors. Thus, unless it is not reliable, this is not the case.


@homer

You can verify the hard disk by downloading (free !) the manufacturers "Disk Fitness Test" (DFT) software, and connecting the drive to a pc. That will tell you if the manufacturer thinks its a drive problem. Note that you have to get the specific software for that type of drive. Most DFT software comes as a self booting floppy, but some now work through windoze.

 I don't have a pc at hand currently.


@Merc

It sounds to me more like you have a bad cable, or the connector on the drive has a bad connection to the logic board.. the manufacturer information is (AFAIK) stored on the board and shouldn't ever be corrupted no matter how many bad sectors the drive has. Make sure your cabling is intact.

 When this problem occured, i checked the secondary IDE cable and the connector of the HD and it looked like it had developed some sort of rust on it. After i cleaned it up it still could not see my partitions and the HD string remained corrupted. So, i'm not sure..
 About the manufacturer information, CLS2086 says that it is stored on an EEPROM. Thus it is not impossible to become corrupted somehow.
 Now, i have reconfigured the drive and it sees the new partitions ok, so far.


@CLS2086

Hi,
corrupt name and references with HDDToolbox ?

 Yes.

look at the connectors pins if they are ok.

 That is very likely to be the case. Although i cleaned it up as i said above, i suspect that the secondary IDE cable is starting to playing up from the many clumsy pulls and plugs (Replacing Backup HD with CD drive etc)
 I never do that with the primary cable.
EDIT: Duh, sorry my bad. By connector pins you mean the pins of the chips in the circuit at the bottom of the HD. Yeah they all look ok.

It could be that because name and specs are on EEPROM, or the electronic on the hdd is dying.

 I see.

Try to find the same and exchange the circuit to get back your data.

 Too late, i have already repartitioned it. I better buy a new drive and perhaps a new ide cable.

 Out of curiosity, where the information about partitions is stored to a HD? In the RDB?

[orange]

er, maybe it is that >4Gb wrapping thing?
there are numerous utilities for recovering partition info (such as RDBSalv)

don't forget to make RDB backup (on a diskette or something) in future every time you change RDB..

[motorollin]

Merc wrote:
the manufacturer information is (AFAIK) stored on the board and shouldn't ever be corrupted no matter how many bad sectors the drive has.

That's not necessarily true. Some (usually old) disks lose the manufacturer/geometry information if you low level format the disk, meaning the information is stored as data on the disk.

--
moto

[AmigaMance]

er, maybe it is that >4Gb wrapping thing?

 This can make partitions to go bad, i don't think it can cause such havoc

there are numerous utilities for recovering partition info (such as RDBSalv)

don't forget to make RDB backup (on a diskette or something) in future every time you change RDB..

 I was right then. Partition info is stored in the RDB. Ok, thank you all.