#HELP! Syquest woes
16 messages in this thread
Okay,
I have a major problem.
I have a 2000, with a 40 meg hard drive and 2091 controller. I have an
internal Syquest as well. I just got two cartridges for the Syquest, and
tried to format them. They don't come up when I put them in, and they
don't come up when I reboot them. If I try to read them (with diskmaster),
they say they have a read/write error.
The BIG problem is that I can't read the original syquest. There is a lot
of stuff on this that I don't want to lose.
What can I do to get it to read the original cartridge. Getting the others
formatted would be icing on the cake.
Chris
I just want to make it clear that the Amiga isn't recognizing the Syquest
drive at all…. I don't get an icon when I boot it.
When you said you they didn't come up…what happened? Did you hear the
drive start to spin the disk? Did the red light start flashing? When you
reboot the system, you should have the disk in the drive, and be sure that
the drive has spun up completely. You'll see the green light go on.
Have you made any hardware or software changes to your system recently?
I've got a few Syquest disks here that I can't format either. The GVP
software just barfs on them. I'm still looking for a solution. If I come
up with one, I'll mention it here.
There's a chance that one of the carts you put into the drive has messed up
the drive completely. This happened at work once when someone dropped a
disk and then put it into a drive. Something was out of alignment and it
really messed up the hard disk. If that's what happened, you'll have to
have the drive repaired.
Steve
Steve, Okay, here's the update. I got the new cartridges to format and
read okay… Now the old one still wouldn't come up. When I say "come up",
I mean that I don't get a SYQ: icon on workbench, or sometimes it would say
"Not a DOS disk " (shudder!). I futzed (yes, futzed) around with HDtoolbox
(not for the squeamish), and now it recognizes the old cartridge, but
doesn't show anythin on the cartridge – even though it's about 70% full.
I've tried Quarterback tools so far, and it said something about couldn't
read bitmap and something else. So now I'm trying some other utilities…
I'll see what happens. Might have to write it off as a loss… Always a
learning experience… I've heard that the GVP controllers handle Syquest
much better than most. Have you always had it hooked up the GVP? I was
told that you have to re-format it with whatever controller you're using..
Chris
Ok…a couple of things. Have you been using DiskChange? I'm not sure
it's required for your controller but it might be. Try turning off the
machine for about 10 seconds, and reboot with the Syquest disk you're
having problem with. That may work.
Are all the disks labeled the same way? All my disks are labeled GH0
Steve A. told me that if the disks had different labels that the system can
get really confused. I did that by accident once, and I can tell you the
system does get really mixed up.
The problem I've been having is that some of disks I have are only being
recognized as 10 MB. I've tried everything I can think of, and they just
don't work.
Steve
Steve, Well, I seem to have been able to take care of my problem for hte
immediate future. I used diskdoctor (not the AmigaDos one) to "find" all
of the files on the cartridge. I then backed up (and 32 some odd floppies
later) and restored the files – after reformattin gthe cartridge. So far
it looks okay. I can't use diskchange with my controller. I'm hoping to
get a GVP accelerator board and use the scsi controller from taht for
that. It's supposed to be much quicker and handle diskchanges more easily.
Anything would be better than this! Chris
Chris,
I've been following this thread off and on for a bit as I've been using
a Syquest for quite a while. What controller are you using? I originally
was using an IVS TrumpCard with a 500 untill I got my 3000. The IVS at the
time used a command called autochange. I still keep a copy of it in the
root directory of each cartridge, only because after all these years, I
still don't trust the Syquest. My one cart just barf on it's boot-block
last week and I had to use QB-Tools to recover my files which unfortunately
always trashes all my graphics files :-(. But, I'm operational again.
I'd check into the GVP controller before I'd get one. They didn't switch
from Syquest to Ricoh because they liked the name better. And I don't
believe it was totally a matter of the Ricoh being a better drive. Just
better with GVP controllers.
I'm done:-).
>>>>>Skip (SKP Graphics) <<<<<
Skip, Things are okay for a while. I have a GVP to play with for a
While…. We'll see what happens… But the Syquest's have to be formatted
exactly the same… that can be a real drag. Chris
Chris,
I find the fact that they have to formatted exactly the same only a
minor inconvienience. Unless you're using it as your primary drive. Even
then, I would just format them with only one partition since 45 megs is
small nowadays.
And I'm really spoiled because the rest of my family uses the computer
only for games and since I have one cart just for games, they won't even
think of booting a floppy. So the games cart seems to stay in most of the
time and I use a directory on my other drive to hold my artwork rather than
swapping carts:-). Talk about lazy. Every so often I have to do it when
things begin to get tight, though.
>>>>>Skip (SKP Graphics) <<<<<
Skip,
what do you mean when you say that QBTools "always trashes your graphics
files"??? Sounds scary to me! (Guess what disk utility package I'm using,
and guess what my primary Amiga use is B^) Can you elaborate on that?
Blaq!
Charles,
I've had QB-Tolls from the beginning and have updated it untill CC
moved. I've used it primarily on my Syquest. It gets funny once in awhile.
Anyway, everytime I've used QB Tools to recover data, it seems that a lot
of my IFF files get trashed. I either get one or more horizontal `bands' of
garbage running through the file or the whole file is trashed. I can view
it but it's all garbage.
It `may' be that the vast majority of these files were previously
deleted files but I KNOW that some where not. And another thing that
happened just this last time is that when I view some of the ones that
weren't trashed, some only show the left half of the file! I use OPUS to
view them. If I use PPshow, they are OK!? Never had that problem before.
And it's only some files. Not all.
I've had no problems with any other files that I can think of. Wierd,
eh?
>>>>>Skip (SKP Graphics) <<<<<
Chris, I jumped in here to let you know that I had somehow corrupted the
bitmap on one of my drives (I don't think it was my syquist, it was my
conner). The point I wanted to make is that Quarterback tools was able to
repair my bitmap for me without destroying any data on my disk. Youmight
want to try it. I think the bitmap is an area that just keeps track of
where data has been placed on a disk. BP
– via Whap!
Hi Bruce, Can you tell me which utility from QBtools did that? I tried it
and it wouldn't work. But I had something else screwed up, so maybe that
was the problem… Chris
Sorry Chris, it was long enough ago that I can't even remember if it was
under a bad or good volume repair menu. As I recall, when it let me know
there was a bad bitmap, I thought it was self prompting from there as far
as getting it to do the repair. I'll be the first to admit that I suffer
from "CML" (Cronic Memory Loss). BP
– via Whap!
No problem, Bruce. I seem to suffer from the same syndrome at times.
It really doesn't matter as long as I get my data back!
Now if only I had a tape backup instead of using 10s of floppies! Chris
Chris,
You might want to contact your dealer and get a SyQuest cleaning cartridge.
It could just be dirt…lets hope.
I assume that you remembered to low-level the new carts before doing a
an AmigaDos format? Have you tried a cold boot with the original (good)
cart in the drive?
Jonathan
– via Whap!
Jonathan, See my reply to steve. So far so good. Keep your fingers
crossed! Chris