Amiga is in serious, serious trouble

[CU_AMiGA]

Hello!

I was having another session playing Duke Nukem 68k (bang! bang!) and decided to try out the Warp OS version. Little knowing the terror i was about to put myself through. I closed the game down and started loading the Warp OS Duke Nukem, or at least that's what i thought was happening. I then got the Warp OS - PPC exception window. I thought "no problem, i will just reset the machine", although this sounded like a brilliant idea, this sadly didn't work, as i was having a bad day.

The machine then booted up but then i got the fright of the lifetime, i got that bloody requester saying "Workbench has checksum error at diskblock xxxxxxx". The machine, for some reason would load up. I immediatly fainted at this and didn't come around until a few hours later. When i came around, i tried to sort out this fiasco that was before me.

I then remembered that i had the emergency disk that is part of Amiga OS 3.9, so i used that but then the worsed came to the worsed, it didn't recognise the CD ROM Drive.

After bashing my television to smithereens i then decided to open up my Amiga and take a look to see if the Power Flyer was in place. I pushed the Power Flyer as much as she would go and then rebooted the bugger up again. This time, it recognised the CD ROM Drive, but i got that requester again. I clicked on cancel (not retry) and the thing loaded up this time, but i got a few error messages along the way saying "can't find Games", Games being a partition (MDH2:).

When the Workbench appeared, i got the icons up but noticed there was an icon saying "MDH2: Uninitialised". My whole life flashed before my eyes when i had seen this. It would seem that i can no longer access this partition, the rest works.

I am also getting at that maybe Duke Nukem 3D may have caused this. Note: i am not blaming anyone personally, it's my fault, just a warning to people.

Firstly, is there anything i can do to rescue the goodies i have on my Games partition. Like a salvation problem for Hard Drives, ie: Disksalv and Quarter Back tools. I have backed it up, but since then, i have done some updates and was due to backup again. Damn it! Remember, this is a 30gig Hard Drive, i have a Power Flyer!

Secondly, i am thinking about getting another Hard Drive, what brands are the best, just for the record, the Hard Drive i have got is a Maxtor, which i understand get fairly hot and maybe a little bit unreliable at times after a lot of use!?

I am in desperate need of help, my Amiga is in pain and has got a frown on her face. Or maybe i should call the while thing a day! Amiga, why are you looking at me like that?!

Regards,

[pjhutch]

All you need to do is boot off a workbench disk and run DiskSalv 2 (free from Aminet btw) on the HD. It should fix the filesystem problem (the hash codes that error check the files has get corrupted, the HD itself should be fine).

See http://ftp.uni-paderborn.de/aminet/dirs/disk_salv.html

[amigamad]

Disksalv by dave haynie should be able to repair it as long as it is not formated with pfs3 file system .

disksalv info here disksalv

Free program here DiskSalv11_32.lha

ive used the program and it works very well . can even unformat a drive. :-)

[CU_AMiGA]

Thanks for the replies guys! :-) Much appreciated!

Yeah, but would these work with a 4+gig Hard Drive?

Regards,

-edit-

oh sorry! I dunno what file system i use, its the one that you would get with Amiga OS 3.9. I think it's SFS, not too sure.

[lempkee]

sounds like you use FFS and your cache killed you.

i have not seen any probs with duke nukem and i use the wos version atleast everyday.

anyway to find out waht filesystem you have, start up hdtoolbox and check in partision menu under filesystem , my guess is FFS!  since SFS would have repaired that error on the fly on your next boot... does so here anyway...

good luck!

[CU_AMiGA]

Yeah! Sorry i meant bloody FFS! Silly me! If i got hold of SFS would this solve my problem?

[mikey2001]

I have a mate who runs a computer consultancy company and he recommends IBM hard drive as the best overall, in terms of reliability, but I think they are quite expensive.  :-)

[Zadoc]

All you need to do is boot off a workbench disk and run DiskSalv 2

DiskSalv2 might be a VERY BAD IDEA if using the NSD patched scsi.device from OS3.9!

DiskSalv2 doesn't handle partitions past the 4Gig barrier very well and can wipe out other partitions before the +4Gig barrier.

I'm not sure what the poweflyer uses to patch in, but I would suggest using DiskMonTools on Aminet instead of DiskSalv2!

Whichever HD repair program you try, PLEASE FOR YOUR SANITY'S SAKE, BACKUP YOUR REMAINING PARTITIONS BEFORE PROCEEDING!!!

I can't stress that enough!  I back up my harddrive partitions to CD-Rom every month or two, and there have been a few times I've been thankfull for doing so...and one time being that I once did attempt to use DisKSalv2 on a partition past the 4gig barrier, which in turn wiped my Work: partition (which was inside the barrier) accidentally.  Had I not had a working backup, I would have lost MANY registered programs that I've spent good money on over the years.

Good luck, and PLEASE BACKUP THE DRIVE FIRST!!

[Cyberus]

When I saw the subject line, I thought you were talking about 'Amiga' in general, rather than your machine

[Castellen]

@ CU_AMiGA:

Check to make sure the computer is actually soft booting the OS 3.9 ROM image.
If not, then it will not be able to correctly access partitions on big disks.

An easy way to tell is type "version" in a CLI, you should get something like this:

Kickstart 45.57, Workbench 45.3


Kickstart 45.xx is OS 3.5/3.9 in ROM.
If you get 40.xx it means you are running OS 3.1 only.

If this is the case, check the Setpatch entry in the startup-sequence.


Also, I'd recommend using PFS3 as a filing system.  Had it for years and have never had invalid disk problems.  Plus it lets you use disks as big as 2Tb!

[Klatch]

IBM drives are made by Hitachi.

Cut the middle man out and save a few bucks

James

[amigamad]

have a mate who runs a computer consultancy company and he recommends IBM hard drive as the best overall, in terms of reliability, but I think they are quite expensive.  

I dont i have 2 here that have got problems ,maxtors are much more reliable mine are on for about 8 to 9 hours a day for every day and never had any problems with them .Seagate are also very good . :-)

[Karlos]

amigamad wrote:

I dont i have 2 here that have got problems ,maxtors are much more reliable mine are on for about 8 to 9 hours a day for every day and never had any problems with them .Seagate are also very good . :-)

Agreed. My old 1G seagate has worked flawlessly since 1995 with daily use and abuse. Its now in my A1200D and I have a Maxtor in my 1200T which also seems fine.

Perhaps the longevity of HD's in amigas is down to the lack of constant swap file thrashing?

[CU_AMiGA]

Hello!

Thanks for the replies. I will try some of the tips you gave me. I will check the version of Workbench/Kickstart i am using. I haven't yet used Disksalv cos of the 4+gig problem, but will use it as a last resort, but not before backing up the rest of my HD! I will also try out the DiskMonTools that someone had suggested.

I have also downloaded the latest BETA version of SFS, but is this better than the one i am using, FFS? What improvements are made?

Plus, how would i get the thing running/installed. I know i would put the main file in L and change the MaxTranfer values, limitations, etc (anything else?). Would this mean i would also have to repartition the whole HD again with SFS? If so then how would the Workbench partition recognise where L is if it has been formatted? Can someone please do a step by step guide or something, i would be most grateful.

Regards,

[Unit21]

I have only good experience with Seagate disks.
Western Digital are also ok, but they tend to be a bit NOISY...

I wouldn´t look twice at Maxtor or IBM though, but that´s mainly due to some bad experience with their 40Gig versions a few years ago...