More HD Trouble ;-(

[CU_AMiGA]

It would seem my "Hard drive Curse" has struck again. :boohoo:  :cry:

The Smartfilesystem message I got was a diskblock error (i think, or was it a bootblock error?). Saying there was an unexpected block at xxxxxxx when expected block was at xxxxxxxxx. This happened when i was listening to MP3, and the system crashed. Plus it would reboot the first time again.

What does this mean and how can i tackle it? I think i may have to bloody set up my Hard Drive again.

Thanks in advance

[PMC]

I had similar problems with SFS, so much so that I went back to the FFS bundled with OS3.9....

I had a similar problem whereby the Guru struck when my A1200 was accessing an SFS formatted partition.  The system would then throw a Guru again upon reboot, so the only way I could get the OS to load was to disable the offending partition in the boot menu, load WB and then repartition using HDToolBox.

Obviously I made sure that SFS was installed as per the instructions, and I made sure that I reformatted the drive after installing the file system but the problem persistantly reoccurred.

SFS seems to "dislike" certain hard drives as my old 420MB Western Digital drive - formatted under SFS seems to survive unscathed every time.

[CU_AMiGA]

Thanks for the reply.

Oh no! That crappy Maxtor HD i got. I knew i should have gotten a Samsung one. So there is nothing else in can do? The reason i changed to SFS is because FFS kept getting Checksum errors.

[PMC]

Maybe SFS gets snotty with larger capacity drives?

If it's any help, my Fujitsu 4.3GB drive suffered the symptoms I described with SFS, as did my 13GB Seagate.  

Checksum errors are a b*st*rd and I know how you feel with them!  However, FFS seems to be a lot more robust under OS3.9 than it did way back when.

I bought biggers drives than I acutally needed and mirrored each of my three partitions so that if one dies then I can restore the data via my floppy disk copy of Directory Opus in the event of losing my boot partition.  If it's any help I'd urge you not to use the "Quick Format" option when setting up new drives as this always leads to trouble.  

[Brian Hoskins]

Do you own a Powerflyer, by any chance? I have recently suffered some nasty HD read error problems and after much stress I found that the problem lay with the PIO setting and quality of cables used.

I have two HDs in my system, a Seagate40GB and a Maxtor40GB.  The seagate works at PIO5 with no complaints, but the Maxtor complains bitterly at that level.  I turned both drives down to PIO4, and replaced the IDE cable with a type recommended by a friend (ATA66 I think it was) and all has been fine since.

I use PFS... but like you was getting errors with FFS previously.

Hope this helps

[CU_AMiGA]

Hi Brian,

You know i have a Power Flyer! I have been emailing you! ;-) Check my profile! :-)

[Jope]

If it's any help I'd urge you not to use the "Quick Format" option when setting up new drives as this always leads to trouble.

Quick Formatting is always recommended, especially if you have over 4GB partitions.

Some format commands don't support long partitions and they wrap around at some point. Not good. Quick Format always works.

If the disk is knackered, then a full format won't help either.. Time to plug it in a PC, fill it with FAT partitions and run Spinrite to see if that can liven it up a bit.

Bad sectors have a tendency to multiply on a disk. Even after spinrite, I wouldn't trust the disk after that.

[CU_AMiGA]

It could be the PIO settings. I will have another go at it tonight and format all the partitions properly. As i have nothing to lose at the moment. There seems to be a mixed reaction about wether to QUICK FORMAT or FULL FORMAT the partitons.

Thanks again guys,

-edit-

I also brought a fairly new IDE cable off a mate so i am guessing it isn't that is it? I do own a Power Flyer by the way.

[Piru]

There seems to be a mixed reaction about wether to QUICK FORMAT or FULL FORMAT the partitons.

No, there isn't.

Always quickformat.

[Framiga]

Hi CU_AMIGA

check or replace the flat cable and try to change the MaxTransfer.

Ciao

[CU_AMiGA]

@piru,

A couple of people have already said about FULL FORMAT, as well as others saying QUICK FORMAT.

@framiga

Change Max Transfer to what? Is the answer in the docs?!? I kept the default setting from Amiga OS 3.9 FFS Max Transfer setting.

Thanks for the replies folks :-)

[Framiga]

@ Piru

sorry Piru but not always :-)

If you have some troubles with PFS and SFS, it is better to do a fullformat.

Remember that with SFS, you can do a FULL format ONLY using the Format command of AOS. (SFSFormat do only Quick format).

Ciao

[CU_AMiGA]

@framiga,

AHA! That might explain it. What about the Max Transfer then?!

[Framiga]

Hi CU_AMIGA

my setup is:

MASK= 0x7FFFFFFE

MaxTransfer= 0x0001FE00  (IIRC like you)

Take a large LHA archive (>5MB), copy it to RAM: and then again to the HD and unarchive it.

Try a couple of times and check the integrity.

If it is corrupted, probably you must change the MazTransfer for ALL your partition.

Don't change the MASK (or you'll loose all your data).

Try this MaxTransfer: 0x7FFFFFFF  


PS- wich FS do you use on the other partition?

[CU_AMiGA]

@framiga,

Thanks. I use SFS on all my partitons. So i would just need to change the Max Transfer and nothing else?

I think my current Max Transfer is: 0x7FFFFFFE