Read error on CF, can't delete folder.

[Coolhand]

In windows I made an image of my 4gb sandisk CF drive, and put that on a kingston 4gb, so I could use the sandisk in my PCMCIA adapter. - the Kingston only works internally.

Copying the image onto the kingston, I had a couple of error messages near the end. However the card still worked and booted my workbench install just fine so I ignored it.

the only problem i seem to have now after about a week is that a couple of WHDload directories have "Read Errors" when opening, the contents otherwise seem ok.

I can delete all the files out of the problem folders but I can't delete the folders themselves. fortunately none of this is going on in my boot partition so I could just copy the contents out, format it and put everything working back in, but I'm wondering eh? and wha? I tried 'swipe' to remove the folders, again no luck.

[fitzsteve]

Perhaps the Kingston CF is slightly smaller, if you used am image larger than your actual CF it will write but give you errors near the end and obvious all data was not written in this case and the end result will therefore be erroneous too.

Unless using the same size media it's best to start again or use WinUAE and copy the files manually into the newly prepared CF.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

MaxTransfer?

I've also heard that some CF cards are pretty unreliable in Miggy's, I believe one that was was Kingston.  There's a long thread over on EAB I found a while back that listed what people were using and what worked best.  Off-hand I believe Sandisk and Transcend were the best.

[Coolhand]

Perhaps the Kingston CF is slightly smaller, if you used am image larger than your actual CF it will write but give you errors near the end and obvious all data was not written in this case and the end result will therefore be erroneous too.

Unless using the same size media it's best to start again or use WinUAE and copy the files manually into the newly prepared CF.

sounds reasonable, I'd surmised something like that might have happened, but no idea if it was a prob or not.

so i guess the RDB/MBR on the image thinks the card is a certain size, but the device is actually slightly smaller, so some areas of the disk that its looking for might not actually exist?

do i want to start from scratch so i can use the kingston as the main drive...? I think they are a bit crappy anyway so I should go back to sandisk and write off the kingston as a waste of money!  I guess I could always put the old image back onto the sandisk rather than starting over and get a new sandisk for the adapter, then everything should be exactly as it was.

or possibly even (so I don't have to go "back in time" a week or two) image the kingston and write that onto the sandisk, then the sizes should match what the image thinks its on... hmm?

[Coolhand]

OK new plan, might be a waste of time... Interesting to try I guess. If I don't get too many read errors maybe I can backup everything on the Kingston (int) to the Sandisk(ext)

Copy card drivers to floppy.

Boot from floppy, partition the Kingston, install wb.

Delete workbench folders, copy contents of Sandisk back to Kingston.

Hopefully it should then work as before? I think the key to this is to make sure I put a new boot sector on there (hence installing wb then deleting rather than simply partitioning and copying) and keep the partition names the same... the old WB install will go back in place as if nothing happened? right?

Even though its the worse of the two cards, it still performs the same and I can carry on using the Kingston internally and the Sandisk on the PCMCIA adapter as a backup.

[paul1981]

In windows I made an image of my 4gb sandisk CF drive, and put that on a kingston 4gb, so I could use the sandisk in my PCMCIA adapter. - the Kingston only works internally.

Copying the image onto the kingston, I had a couple of error messages near the end. However the card still worked and booted my workbench install just fine so I ignored it.

the only problem i seem to have now after about a week is that a couple of WHDload directories have "Read Errors" when opening, the contents otherwise seem ok.

I can delete all the files out of the problem folders but I can't delete the folders themselves. fortunately none of this is going on in my boot partition so I could just copy the contents out, format it and put everything working back in, but I'm wondering eh? and wha? I tried 'swipe' to remove the folders, again no luck.

What did you use to make an image?
Personally I always use WinUAE to "clone" amiga drives using "copy xxx to xxx all clone" from within the emulated Workbench as it ensures perfect copies of drive contents every time...even if to/from Windows folders/fake partitions; this is due to the extra Amiga file preservation bits it stores in seperate files along with the Amiga files (if on NTFS for example), which UAE then interprets from within the emulation to reconstruct the Amiga file properties as they would be as if held on a native Amiga drive. So when handling Amiga files on my PC I always do so from within the Workbench under UAE.
My WinUAE setup doesn't like CF drives all that much any more - hasn't liked them for over a year, and I'm not sure why exactly. Weird... anyway I use 2.5" Hard Drives 9/10 times.

[Coolhand]

I'm on a different machine right now but i think its called winimage.

I heard about it from a thread by Fitzsteve.  I only have CF's to work with here, afaik, winimage should make a carbon copy bit for bit so its not like each file is read off separately, interpreted in some way and there's some room for losing protection bits or whatever the Amiga needs.

In the end I think I've fixed the issue with the corrupt files by simply emptying the end partition (Where the errors were) onto the external sandisk then just deleted the partition with the undeletable folders and made a new one 20-odd mb smaller.

So i'm still using the kingston based off the cloned Sandisk. Whether thats wise, I don't know. I will see how it goes.

Moral of the story, only buy Sandisk Ultra's :whack: