CompuServe Thread

#HD0: Read/Write error

5 messages in this thread
#11790From: John Van SickleJul 4, 1991 11:39 AM
I have a 48 Meg Seagate harddrive which I have been using for about two years. The drive is currently just under 1/2 way full. For some reason though, whenever I try to write a new file, the System comes back and tells me that I have a read/write error on the Harddisk. Is there a program available on the CompuServe or elsewhere which can analyze my Harddrive and tell me about the status of it. Also is there a way to tell the computer to 'skip' the next 'bad' area on the harddrive and store in the next available 'good' area?
#11800From: Don Curtis/SYSOPJul 4, 1991 3:25 PM
John, In AmigaUser, Lib 9 look for HDTEST.LZH. Presuming the drive you have isn't a SCSI drive…it'll give you the necessary information for a program like PREP so you can map out any bad sectors. As to skipping bad areas…no…not really (other than via PREP or some equivalent program that came with your drive controller/host adapter). You can partition around the bad area…but that's not a good solution. Don
#11818From: BILL LEACHJul 5, 1991 9:51 AM
John; The GVP software will test and map out bad sectors but I presume that it will only do so on their controller cards. I am assuming that you are using a 2091 under AmigaDOS 1.3. It sounds at though you should be doing a low level format (after a FULL HD backup of course). I don't believe that there is anything you can do for your Seagate unless there is something in the libraries that can find and mark the blocks as used. With some drives, the drive itself can be told to replace bad blocks (Micropolis, Quantum, CDC, Maxtor and some others). An Amiga message processed by Whap!, bill
#11839From: John Van SickleJul 5, 1991 10:20 PM
Bill, About 6 months ago, I had the same problem with my hard drive, R/W error so at that time, I LHARCed all vital programs (No Backup utility), and I did a low level format. Now it may be that I am not doing it correctly, but I think that it just happens to be bad sectors on the drive. If you have any other solutions I might try them, but I don't think I will try the Low Level format again just yet. thanks, John
#11850From: BILL LEACHJul 6, 1991 3:35 AM
John; What controller are you using? The only controller/software combination that I personally know of that handles bad block mapping is the GVP FaastPrep. I am sure that there are other (Microbiotics, etc) but I have no experience with them. CBM is sorely lacking in that area. If you know the bad block numbers then Prep (or HDTool box on 2.0) will let you tell the system to map out the bad blocks. If I understand your request, you want to find a utility that will do the test, give you a list of bad blocks and allow you to then map them out be allocating the blocks to a dummy file…yes? I believe that such software exists but I don't know what it is or where to find it. An Amiga message processed by Whap!, bill