Hard drive failure
5 messages in this thread
Can anyone tell me what has suddenly happened to my 2000.
Suddenly (today) I can no longer get Prowrite 2.5 to access any files on my
hard drive. When I select OPEN from the project menu the files requester
comes up, then the machine crashes with the message: "Disk Corrupt – Task
Held – Finish all disk activity – Select Cancel to reset"
I have tried running Prowrite from its distribution floppy, have moved the
hard disk copy to a different directory and run it from there, have even
tried running my older version 1.0. The same thing happens every time.
No other program does this. Yet. I am about to do a full backup and format
the hard drive. Is this a sign that my hard drive is starting to fail? If
so it will be the second Seagate disk to fail in a few months. Will a
format correct the problem?
Thanks,
Rich
Rich,
DO a backup, by all means, but then rather than formatting the HD right
away, take a look at the Prowrite program, and ancillary files it uses, and
the directories you store your data files in. You might just have a corrupt
file in there somewhere. Check them by doing a 'DIR ALL' on the disk, then
perhaps by copying the files in question to another drive to see if they
can be read properly.
-larry
Larry,
Thanks. I have solved the problem. But this is one of those 'solutions'
that still leaves one wondering about how well one understands what really
went wrong.
In addition to the "disk corrupt" message, I have also produced the
message: FS0: has a read/write error" (my hard drive is FS0:) As far as I
can tell, neither message has any validity, and is being triggered by some
file that Prowrite doesn't like when it is first invoked.
Among files that Prowrite checks on startup is its own preferences file. If
it doesn't find it in the current directory, it uses default values. If it
does find it, it uses it. If it finds a 'corrupt' prowrite preferences
file, a system level message of the type I have gotten occurs.
I have _always_ invoked Prowrite from a shell. Prowrite resides in a
directory named "Prowrite" so my shell command of course is
"prowrite/prowrite." My current directory was always the root directory of
the hard drive when I issued that command. Prowrite had always written its
preference file into the prowrite directory and had apparently been
satisfied with the file upon subsequent startup calls.
ReadySoft tech support and I can only conclude that there is now a file on
the harddrive that prowrite is objecting to. I have no idea what that file
is. The solution to the problem has been to CD to the prowrite directory,
and then issue the command "prowrite." All is well then. I can even then
exit Prowrite, CD to the root directory, and issue "Prowrite/prowrite" and
not experience the crash. However, if I warm boot and try to access
prowrite from the root, the problem has returned.
Why this problem suddenly started after many weeks of successful operation
is still not explained. Also, and this is the part that really bothers me,
I am running prowrite on my 3000 under both 1.3 and 2.0 with no such
problem. Oh, well. At least my drive is not at fault, and I now have done a
(slightly overdue) full backup.
Rich
Richard,
That is strange. I run Prowrite (3.0) from by root directory all the time
without trouble. Prowrite itself is buried about 3 subdirectories deep; as
is the Prowrite Prefs file. I run the program from a CLI utility program
rather than workbench.
Is there a chance that your shell program is giving Prowrite a bum steer
towards the Prefs file?
Jerry
Jerry,
I agree that this whole thing is very strange. I was running ProWrite from
the root all the time until this thing started happening. And I am _still_
running it from the root directory on my 3000 under both 1.3.2 and 2.0 with
no problem. I must have some file now on my 2000's hard drive that Prowrite
is for some reason finding and to which it is objecting.
I think the offending file _may_ be an IFF graphic. I believe that Prowrite
checks the disk for IFF files. I have lots of these files in various
directories. I'm going through them now.
Rich