Can't get 2 IDE drives working on A4000

[djkoelkast]

I now started with the emergency disk and only the IDE drive connected.
When I start HDToolBox, select the drive and click Partition Drive I get a stopwatch pointer and the whole Amiga just hangs. I've tried this a couple of times, it just hangs and does nothing.
When I go to install drive I can do anything, without it hanging.

What could this be?

[Thomas]

Perhaps a corrupted RDB (loop in pointers).

Try this before you run HDToolbox: http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/downloads/killrdb.lha

HDToolbox will then think the drive is empty, so it needs to be installed again.

[djkoelkast]

So I run KillRDB and then I need to Install Drive in HDToolBox?
And take over the same as before? Like 9795 cylinders etc.?

When I run HDToolBox now I can choose install as well and choose NEW or EDIT the RDB, should I do this or rather go for KillRDB first?

After that I should re-enter all partitions as they were and give the correct names and then they're back?

[djkoelkast]

KillRDB went fine, no output so it should be ok now.
What to do with HDToolBox (I don't want to destroy the drive again )

[Thomas]

There should be only one thing which HDToolbox allows you to do now: install the drive.

Yes, make sure to use the same values for number of cylinders and blocks per cylinder as before. After installing it should allow you to add partitions without freeze.

I don't want to destroy the drive again

Well, you have nothing right now. It cannot get worse, can it ?

[djkoelkast]

Believe me, it can always get worse.
Well, on the PC that is
I'd like to somehow find my data back, put it on a new harddisk and play with one of my biggest loves of all time, the Amiga. Don't worry, my girlfriend is far more important

[djkoelkast]

I've made the 1st 3 partitions according to the plan. Gave it the same names and all.
But the latest 3 I can't because SFS is not installed on the emergency bootdisk, so I can't do that yet.

At the moment I have 2 partitions back, only the 1st one not yet as I miss 1 cylinder, I'll try some more. Looks promising!

Start: Cylinder 2
Size: 305 Cylinders

Start next: Cylinder 308

305 + 2 = 307, but HDToolBox says this is 306 cylinders, not 305...

Edit: after fiddling around it worked (I'm really amazed how this works! When I compare it to Windows it would mean hell, you can't 'remake' partitions there), so now back to making it bootable (yeah, I forgot...), booting and doing the last 3 SFS partitions within the correct environment.

I don't know how to thank you but thanks a lot!

[Thomas]

I can't because SFS is not installed on the emergency bootdisk

There is no need to install SFS on the boot disk, you can load the file from wherever it is, for example from the SCSI disk. Just go to Add/update in HDToolbox, click on Add and select the file.

after fiddling around it worked

There is one unused cylinder between "WB3-IDE" and "Spare": WB3 ends in cylinder 306 and Spare begins in cylinder 308. Cylinder 307 is not used, but it has been used earlier because it contains one "Possible FFS bootblock".

I don't know how to thank you but thanks a lot!

You are welcome. Those programs were not written to lie around unused on Aminet.

[djkoelkast]

When I boot up from the IDE that's fixed I have 3 out of the 6 partitions, last 3 should be SFS. So I try to make them and it tells me if I'm sure and that it will destroy all data, hm, it IS a new partition because it just sees the rest as empty space with no partitions.

Is it safe to click OK there?

[Thomas]

Yes, it should be safe.

[djkoelkast]

After all this time I finally dared to do this last step.
All my harddisk was messed up, but it was only that partition #1 was suddenly starting at cylinder 3 in stead of 2. After fixing this and having SFS loaded in HDToolBox everything went fine and I was able to copy over all partitions from both my harddisks to my new IDE > CF 8GB Microdrives.
Currently I'm waiting for a better IDE > CF converter, as mine i a double one but only contains 1 slot, so I can not hook up 2 at the same time.

So Thomas thanks a lot, I'm happily Amiga'ing again.