#SCSI Hard disk crash :^(
26 messages in this thread
I need some input on a hard drive problem:
It seems that one of my external SCSI hard drives gave up the ghost last
night, while the machine was rendering. Here are the symptoms:
On power-up, I can hear the drive doing a self-seek test, and that sounds
normal. Then during the bootup process, when the OS polls the drive, I can
hear an unatural clunking sound, and the system will not boot beyond this
point. It appears that the drive is failing during this reset command.
It is possible to boot up the system when that drive is turned off.
When I then turn on the drive and try to use HDToolBox, it locks up when
polling the external drive, just like during bootup. SCSIMounter will scan
the bus, and show the drive with the correct parameters, however it too
locks up when trying to mount the drive.
Since the drive is not mounted properly, the only restoration utility
(Quarterback Tools) I have won't work.
Is there a utility out there, commercial or otherwise, that will work on a
drive directly over the SCSI bus?
Thanks,
Erik Flom
Erik,
That unnatural clunking sound sounds like a head crash and a serious
problem. Have you tried booting from another drive, but with the suspicious
drive turned on at boot? I suspect the same problem will occur since you said
scsimounter won't mount the drive. I've only had a related experience once,
long ago with a Seagate ST251. The drive was brand new and worked once. The
second time the drive was turned on it went through the startup self-test and
then "clunked" like yours. It never worked again. I returned the drive and
the dealer tested the drive upon return and reported that it was indeed quite
dead. Sounds something like your problem.
I had pretty much resigned myself to sending it into Quantum. (It's a 2.5"
80MB SCSI in a 'Hitchiker' external case [powered via a special cable
'hacked' into the 3000 PS] –
it came out a Mac PowerBook originally . . .Less than a year old.)
Thanks,
Erik Flom
Erik;
If HDToolBox can not deal with the drive it is likely that you are
completely out of luck. It sounds as though the drive is pulling the bus
ready line low when accessed and then never completing whatever operation
it is trying to do.
There are versions of HDToolBox that can have trouble with some drive
errors. If you have access to GVP's FaaastPrep, you might want to give it
a try but I think that the effort will be an exercise in futility.
-bill
I was able to solve the problem by using a SCSI utility on the AMAX side
of my system.
I ran SilverLining, a Mac formatting utility, and let it write out the Mac
info to the harddrive. Just out of curiosity, I then re-booted my Amiga,
and the machine booted while the external drive was turned on. (A good
sign!) I was then able to use HDToolBox to write out the RDBs using the
previously saved drive info, and then set up the partition as it had
originally existed.
I re-booted, and voila! My drive had returned – with data intact.
(Needless to say, I QUICKLY copied everything off the drive and
re-formatted it just for safety's sake. Seems to be working just fine
now.)
I think that instead of it crapping out during the night, it had actually
died when I tried to copy some files onto it while a BETA version of a
program I have was working in the background. (Needless to say, I won't be
doing much multi-tasking while I play around with that BETA software from
now on!)
Thanks for the help,
Erik Flom
Wow! That is a useful piece of information. I would not have bet on your
potential for success but sure glad to hear that it worked.
-bill
I WAS very surprised that it worked, AND that I got all the AmigaDOS stuff
of the disk too!
All I can guess is that the RDB info got overwritten, and the info was so
screwed up, that AmigaDOS choked. Once I overworte the RDB area using a
Mac utility, the Amiga had no trouble getting past that drive during
startup. Then re-writing the old RDB configuration was all it took to make
it 'normal' again.
'Thank heaven for small miracles.'
Keep On Toastin'
Erik Flom
Erik;
I can just imagine your relief (and amazement since I presume that you
were at that point only interested in recovering the physical media).
Yes, it is useful to know that the Mac utility will only blow away the RDB
and not destroy the data otherwise.
-bill
Erik,
Somewhere in LIBs, there is a utility that will save a file containing the
RDB info of any drive, and will allow you to write it back out. Try a 'BRO
KEY:RDB LIB:ALL' here in AmigaUser.
Handy to keep around.
-larry
I'd never seen a use for something like that, . . .before now! :^)
I'll probably DL it just to be on the safe side.
Thanks for the reminder,
Erik Flom
Erik,
I have since checked, and the file I was mentioning to you is not here in
AmigaUser, but is in AmigaTech, LIB 11, and is called RDB.LZH
-larry
Well, Erik, at least it's in warranty. Quantum is pretty good about warranty
repairs/replacements. I sold a Quantum 100 meg drive to a fellow out in Wash
state and when he installed it he used screws which were a tad to long and
shorted out the electronics. He was a bit miffed with me, but recognized later
that it was his fault. I told him I thought the drive was still in warranty.
He called Quantum and they told him the drive was in warranty and replaced it
at no charge! That's good customer support. He wasn't even the original
owner! To say the least, he was a happy camper.
I, too, have had good luck with Quantum tech support.
A friend GAVE me a dead 200MB drive onetime, figuring it wasn't worth the
cost of fixing it. I didn't even have proof of purchase, and all Quantum
was concerned with was whether the drive was in warranty.
They repaired it for free, and it's been the main drive on my system for
over 1.5 years now.
Fortunately, it turned out to be a problem with the RDB area of the disk,
and I was able to get it working again with few problems. (Even salvaged
the data off of it!)
Thanks,
Erik Flom
Erik,
Yep, Quantum seems real good about their tech support and warranty
repair. They make a real good product. I've used Quantum drives for many
years now. In fact of the several hard drives I have the only ones that aren't
Quantums are the ones that came in my A3000 and 3000T, oh, and the two AT
drives I have which are Maxtors.
My main drive in the 3000T is the old 240 LPS which was in the 2000 for
a couple of years. I have a 100 meg LPS in the 3000T which is dedicated to
Amax, and an ELS 85 meg drive which is used for Amax in the 3000. In the
interim I've owned and sold a 40 meg Quantum, a 100 meg Pro, and a 52 Meg Pro.
Guess you'd say I like Quantum drives!
Glad you did manage to salvage your data. At least now you can rest
easy until the drive is repaired.
There's the rub: The drive works just fine now! (No more locking up the
SCSI.device whenever an attempt was made to mount the drive, no more weird
'clunking' noise when mounting, etc. ?!?!?)
The RDB area of the drive must have had severely corrupted parameters,
causing some sort of 'seek' failure when a mount was attempted. (I'm only
guessing at this point, though.)
You didn;t get a Quantum drive in your 3000? Mine came with a 50MB Quantum
drive, years ago.
(I think that ALL the drives I've ever owned have been Quantums, except
for my new SyQuest, though I've never had problems with other drives in my
role as a hardware tech.)
Keep On Toastin'
Erik Flom
Erik,
The 3000 came with a Maxtor 120 meg drive and the tower came with a
Seagate 240 meg drive. I think the older machines came with Quantums when they
were using smaller drives. However, the ads noted that the 3000 came with a
100 meg drive, but mine shower up with the 120 megger. The tower ad was a 200
meg drive and showed up with the 240 megger. Go figure it! Both machines came
with the high density floppies. The tower is very nice, although I have had it
only a couple of days. What was really nice was the ability to take all these
SCSI drives and get them in one box instead of having them jury-rigged all over
the place.
Only gripe I have with these 3000s is that removable media drives need
to have cartridges in them or it takes a long time to boot. My tower has a
CD-ROM drive in it and I need to keep a CD in the caddy or the machine won't
boot quickly. It seems to wait a 30 second timeout scanning for something to
be put in the drive. My 3000 does the same thing with a Konica removable
device. I can't figure out if there's a work around this.
The work-around for the slow booting problem with removable media drives
is to set their ID's higher than your system boot disk. (Or so I've been
told)
ie: You would set CD-ROMS & SyQuests to 5&6 while the other disks had
lower numbers. If you do this, you need to use a utility like SCSIMounter
to mount the media when you need it.
Thanks for the info,
Erik Flom
Erik,
I tried that, but it didn't seem to make any difference,
although I can try it again. I had originally set the boot drive to
0 while the CD-ROM was set at 4, but it still hung on the CD-ROM for
some reason. I also find that when I run HDToolbox that if a CD is
inserted then HDToolbox hangs on the CD_ROM until I eject the CD. The
CD-ROM filesystem and drive are mounted during the startup. I don't
have a similar problem with the Konica drive, although there is quite
a difference between the filesystems in use. The Konica runs under
Fastfilesystem, but the CD-ROM runs under AsimFilesystem. It's
certainly not a major problem since I can always keep a CD inserted in
the drive, but it's one of those little things you would like to be
different. Funny that the system doesn't seem to care at all about
the tape drive.
Hmm, I was just repeating what had been told to me concerning SyQuests. I
still have as yet to try it with my 3000.
Sounds pretty quirky. I have a feeling that when we get our new CD-ROM in
(later this week), I'll be looking at all this a little more closely.
So, would you recommend The Asim s/w over the Xetec drivers?
Thanks,
Erik Flom
P.S. Is the 'Konica' you refer to a magneto-optical drive?
If it makes you feel any better, MACS take longer to boot when you don't
have the media instlaled in them either.
-Jonathan
Joh,
Hah! I feel better already. Yes, that's true. I have a Konica
removable on the Amiga which is also seen by Amax when it boots up. It does
take longer, but not quite as long. However, on the Mac side I have SCSIprobe
set up to NOT mount the drive at boot, so the Mac basically ignores it.
Eric,
Have no real idea on wether this is applicable to your problems, but I do
know that the Xetec utilities that came with my drive "talk to the
harddrive behind AmigaDos's back" to quote the manual. It allows for set
up, partitioning, formatting etc. prior to the system's ability to
recognize the drive.
Even if your system is not Xetec, they have some excellent tech people who
I suspect would at least try to help you out. They have a BBS at
Gary: Sorry, but I lost the last of your message.
What was their BBS #?
Thanks,
Erik Flom
Erik,
oooops! You can reach the Xetec BBS at 913-827-1974.
Gary
With short Stacks & Low Manifold Pressure on AutoPilot