Data corruption with SFS CF drive and DPaint 4.5 AGA?

[AmigaBruno]

I hope someone can help me find out what's just started happening a few days ago on my Amiga A1200 and is still continuing.

Back in the 1990's I used to do a lot of artwork on the Amiga using Deluxe Paint, but when I was pressured into switching to using a PC, I decided to try and use whatever software was available for Windoze and Linux, without much success.

Eventually, I realised that I more or less stopped doing computer artwork/graphics at about the same time as I stopped using Amiga computers. After this, I had to get another Amiga or a couple of Amigas and get back to creating artwork on the good old Deluxe Paint. I've recently progressed to using AGA interlace modes on LCD TVs which would have flickered like mad on CRT monitors without a flicker fixer.

Unfortunately, so far, I've never managed to transfer any graphics from my Amiga to any other device, and things have now reached a crisis.

A few times recently, while saving some graphics screens from DPaint 4.5 AGA on an Amiga A1200 with 4Gb RAM, I've had  a Software Error with Guru Meditation #00000004 , as well as there being no sign of a few recent files in a series I'd saved when I tried to reload them. These Software Error/Guru Meditations always occurred while saving the file. The screen format was PAL AGA interlace 512 lines with 256 colours.

After rebooting, I tried to load the file I last tried to save, but it didn't appear in the list. After that, I found that there was no sign of the last few saved files in the file load requester. Next, I reloaded the latest version of my graphics screen which I could find, then did the same edits, but then when I tried to save under the next consecutive number, I got the error message " already exists! Delete?"

The last filename I used for a successful save was Uebermaid40. I wondered if the filename had anything to do with it, so then I tried something like UebermaidJune16A and got the same error again.

I hope someone can help me, before my whole CF card gets corrupted. In the meantime, II hope to copy some graphics files onto an Empty ADF disk on a Gotek drive or a laptop running AROS.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

If you suspect the card is failing, pop it into a PC and read it with WinUAE?

[pVC]

First, don't try to write anything on it now to avoid any bigger corruption and loss of more data.

Check your partitions with the sfscheck program, "sfscheck dh0:", "sfscheck dh1:", etc in the shell for example. If it tells any problems on any partition, I'd highly suggest you to backup your data for example to another partition if you have enough space, and re-format the problematic partition. And backup your own creations to some other media too. Then copy the stuff back.

Copy the files so that they preserve all attributes, for example with the Copy command and the CLONE option from the shell ("Copy dh0:#? dh1:backup/ ALL CLONE", for example).

Another issue which it could be, what do you have as the max transfer value on your partitions? It should be 0x1FE00 with CF cards, or otherwise bigger files can get corrupted.

For transferring data files to other devices you could use PCMCIA network card (with Network Boot Disk for example), PCMCIA-CF adapter with FAT formatted CF card, or putting your Amiga's card to a UAE system.

[AmigaBruno]

If you suspect the card is failing, pop it into a PC and read it with WinUAE?

OK, I could read it using my USB CF card reader, which I haven't got with me at the moment. What exactly is the process I go through after reading it, though?

Of course, I meant to type that my Amiga A1200 is fitted with 4Mb RAM and has a 4Gb CF card.

[AmigaBruno]

First, don't try to write anything on it now to avoid any bigger corruption and loss of more data.

Check your partitions with the sfscheck program, "sfscheck dh0:", "sfscheck dh1:", etc in the shell for example. If it tells any problems on any partition, I'd highly suggest you to backup your data for example to another partition if you have enough space, and re-format the problematic partition. And backup your own creations to some other media too. Then copy the stuff back.

Copy the files so that they preserve all attributes, for example with the Copy command and the CLONE option from the shell ("Copy dh0:#? dh1:backup/ ALL CLONE", for example).

Another issue which it could be, what do you have as the max transfer value on your partitions? It should be 0x1FE00 with CF cards, or otherwise bigger files can get corrupted.

For transferring data files to other devices you could use PCMCIA network card (with Network Boot Disk for example), PCMCIA-CF adapter with FAT formatted CF card, or putting your Amiga's card to a UAE system.

I'll try using sfscheck as you suggest. Unfortunately, since this happened I've already saved some games from "Civilization", but they may be to a different partition. I bought the CF card pre formatted from Amigakit at the Amiga 30th celebration in Peterborough last year, but I don't really know anything about the SFS format. It has three partitions, so I suppose I could copy those graphics files onto one or both of the other partitions for safe keeping. I didn't know about the CLONE option. AFAIK, the max transfer value was set up by Amigakit, so it should be OK. I'm not next to my Amiga A1200 at the moment, so I can't check. Obviously, your last suggestion requires me to buy some additional hardware, so I can't try that yet.

[PanterHZ]

Your SFS partitions may have a hidden ".recycled" dir, which contains  deleted and old versions of your graphics files. You can check this out  by f.e. entering "List DH1:.recycled" in a Shell.