#Strange A3000 Disk Probs
4 messages in this thread
I am having a very strange problem with my A3000 (WB 2.1, 12 MB fast, 2 MB
chip).
The second hard disk is a Quantum 105S partitioned into two drives, WORK2:
and WORK3:. On a cold boot, the system reports that it "can't access drive
WORK2:, Retry or Cancel." If I warm boot (Ctrl-Amiga-AMiga) the system
will "find" drive WORK2: but anything that runs off of it in the startup
sequence or startup folder will crash.
AmiBack Tools and Quarterback tools both reported lots of errors on the
partition. I re-formatted the partition and restored from my backup. All
was fine for a few days and then the same thing started happening again!
The other partition (WORK3:) has never failed at boot time, nor do the
disk tools report any problems with it.
Anybody have a clue as what I should try next??
-J
You may have to do a BAD BLOCK REMAP to find those bad sectors and make it so
that nothing gets written on them…..then reformat. You do this through the
disk prep software that works with the drive controller. Good Luck, Gary
Jay,
I am deeply concerned that your system died a second time after a full
backup and restore. I would second the Bad Block Remap as well. However,
if this fails, you really need to start looking at a hardware problem.
In order, you have either a cable problem, not likely but possible, a
controller problem, very likely and easy to diagnose, or a hard disk
problem, extremely likely and hard to diagnose.
If you have the means, I firmly suggest you try out the hard drive in a
friend's system for a few days. At the very least, that will eliminate
the controller error or the hard drive error. If the disk works fine in
another system, then the controller is at fault. If the disk fails, then
the harddrive is at fault.
At this point, you may also want to check what sort of gaurantee you
have on the harddrive. Usually the harddrive fails first, but I won't
certify that it is the case for you. Try swapping it out to see.
Good luck. I hope this helps.
The Four Seasons of Southern California:
Fire, Flood, Earthquake, and Riot.
>> I am deeply concerned that your system died a second time after a
>> full backup and restore. I would second the Bad Block Remap as well.
>> However, if this fails, you really need to start looking at a
>> hardware problem.
I'm not so sure that the bad block remap is the right thing to do for a Quantum
SCSI drive as according to the drive manual, the drive takes care of that sort
of thing.
>> a controller problem, very likely and easy to diagnose,
Well the other (boot) drive still works OK.
>> or a hard disk problem, extremely likely and hard to diagnose.
More likely I think. If I have to I'll plug it into my PC and exercise there
for a wile.
Yesterday I had AmiBack Tools fix the disk partition. I used the computer for a
while and it was fine. I ran ABT before I shut off the machine and all was ok.
I just turned the machine on today and it reported more problems with the
suspect partition. Very strange.
Then as the machine warmed up I noticed that the video got worse and worse,
i.e. all of the vertical lines started looking jagged in a horizontal
direction, kind of like a column of "Z" characters. Makes the screen a bit
difficult to read.
I am going to take the machine to work tomorrow and check out the power supply
with a volt meter and a 'scope and see what's up.
-J