#Hard Disk Disaster!!!!!
29 messages in this thread
Dear Friends,
I have had the most disastrous accident in my entire Amiga career and
I have no one to turn to. I have pulled out all my hair and the walls of my
house are somewhat….well, DESTROYED! Here's the problem:
I just received my update of excellence! in the mail and was in the process
of installing it on my HARD DISK. To install it, I first copied my document
directory elsewhere on the disk and deleted the contents of the old
excellence! directory so I could install the new files. Well, as the
excellence! Hard drive install program was copying the new files, I got my
good friend Mr. System Request, and he told me the worst news of my life:
"VOLUME DH0: HAS A READ/WRITE ERROR" AHHHHHHH!!!!! So, I retried and then
cancelled. I then rebooted only to find Mr. System Requester telling me
DH0: was not validated. So, I figured I'd wait until it was validated and
"RETRY" BUT, I got the read/write error…So now, it is just a vicious
circle; there is no way to validate my hard disk so I can get things back
on track… What should I do? Please help me!!! by the way, the error I got
was: Key 44675 has a bad header byte… What's that? Some one please help
me as soon as possible… Thank you very much…
Sincerely,
Timothy Stonis
Timothy,
The once stopped, the validation will not continue. You should be able to
backup the partition with a program like QuarterBack, even though you can't
write to it. If you're lucky, you'll get almost everything to backup
correctly. Unfortunately, (and I'd _love_ to hear of another way since
this has also happened to me recently,) the only way that I know of to
actually correct the problem is to backup, reformat, and then restore the
offending partition.
Hope this helps.
David
It is possible via a disk editor, but unfortunately I don't understand
it well enough. Perhaps someone here will walk Tim through the process.
— Ethan
I recently had the very same thing happen to me, luckily however, it was
the same day I receive a copy of the new QuarterBack Tools. It was able to
repair the error with no loss of data. If the error had been in another
area, I could have had some data loss.
Greg
Greg White / MicroSearch 72230,1617
We listen to our customers..carefully
Use the public domain utility called DISKSALV to get your files back, if
you can't read from the drive after the validate requester. You should be
able to find it online here, and yes, it will work even if you are getting
error requesters from the HD… As long as the device mounts it'll work.
This program is priceless.. It's bailed me out from crashes several times.
Timothy,
Try Quarterback Tools by Central Coast Software. It was just released and
it might help you solve your problem. Their phone number is (303) 526-1030.
Dom Fontana
Thanks for your help everyone, I'll try and pick up a copy of Quarterback.
sincerely,
Timothy Stonis
Timothy,
You need to know that Quarterback and Quarterback Tools are two separate
programs. Quarterback is a hard disk backup program – a very good one!.
Quarterback Tools is a set of programs to help you manage your hard disk,
such as recovering files, arranging things for the maximum speed, editing
files, etc. Right now, you need the Tools to fix your hard disk, and you
also need Quarterback (or something similar to it) to back up your disk. I
would suggest backing up everything possible before working on the disk.
There ARE other ways to get that bad file eliminated, but they require
considerable knowledge of the way files are stored on the disk, and a good
bit of nerve – along with a good disk editor. Quarterback Tools is MUCH
easier!
Betty
Timothy,
Quarterback TOOLS will help with your hard disk problem, not Quarterback.
They're made by the same company, Central Coast Software, but QB is a HD
backup program, only useful if you've already backed up your HD to it. QB
Tools, which is what you need, should help you recover from your HD crash
without losing many, if any, files.
I just wanted to clarify it, since your message said you would pick up QB
and not QB Tools.
Dom Fontana
Dom,
It's usually possible to back-up the files from a partition even though it
hasn't been validated. Unfortunately, I've had to do this several times in
the last couple of months. Actually, it's a good thing that the validation
doesn't succeed, since it locks the drive into read-only mode. Good to
back up, but not for anything else. Lacking something like QB Tools, my
only option was to backup-reformat-restore. This works well, although it'a
bit of a pain.
You're correct when you say that QB is a backup/restore program and won't
FIX the problem. It can be applied to SOLVE the problem, though. Probably
the best method is to (1) backup, (2) attempt to fix with QB tools, (3) if
the problem can't be repaired with QB tools, then reformat & restore.
David
dom, I've found a second HD (fairly cheap one) an invaluable aid to
preventing permanent data loss problems. Its easy to back up one HD to
another and entirely remove the second from the system. if your work is
worth $$$ then this is a fairly reasonable investment as backup to floppies
can be REAL tedious for any sizable amount of data.
Betty and Dominick, thank you, but I did realize that I needed QB Tools. As
soon as I sent the reply I realized what I had wrote, but I was too lazy to
change it. However, I am glad that you both responded, it gives me faith in
my fellow users. Thanks again…
-Timothy Stonis
Note. If you get QBtools do this before you use it. Call CCS and get on
their bbs. And down load version 1.2a. You will need to give the sysop your
QBtools number to get it. Allso note that if your use a A2090 you may not
be able to defragment a st506 drive. It's not tools it's the A2090 driver.
John.
Thanks for the tip John…
-Tim Stonis
Since CCS is local to me, I called them about the problems with QBTools and
2090s and 2090As. They say it is a problem with their software, not with
the driver.
What tools does "QuarterBack Tools" have? Is there a disk optomizer
program? It took over FOUR DAYS to "tune" my 80 meg Quantum with The Disk
Mechanic. No joke! How much does QB Tools cost?
Leslie,
Quarterback Tools does the following (from page 2 of the manual):
Optimizes hard disk and floppy disk performance-
Eliminates file and space fragmentation-
Restores lost or deleted files-
Finds bad blocks and marks them "out of service"-
Makes unusable disks usable again-
Recovers files from corrupted disksFormats disks in a way that preserves
old filesUnformats disks formatted by mistake-
I hope this helps.
Dom Fontana
Sounds a lot like what I've been looking for. I'll keep my eyes open for
the product. Thanks.
Recent discoveries about Quarterback and the Quarterback Tools leave me
wondering… At the Syndesis office, we have a quite ordinary A2000
system: A CBM '020 board with 2 megs, an ASDGdesigned, Progressive
Peripherals-sold 2 meg board, and a GVP SCSI disk controller. Quaterback
4.2 refuses to work in this system, and calls to Central Coast ended in
"You've got a P-P memory board? They're buggy. It's not our fault." Also,
the 4.2 manual is full of disclaimers of this sort: we don't work with XYZ
memory boards, or ABC hard disk controllers, or DEF, etc. Sometimes they
blame the third-party manufacturers, sometimes they blame Commodore,
sometimes they claim those two parties blame each other – of course, they
don't blame their own program. 🙂 As for Quarterback Tools, in places,
the manual doesn't match up with the program – the text describes menus
that aren't there. It de-fragged some partitions just fine, but we'd never
see the screen that says you should reboot – the machine just hung. It
also opens a borderless window on the Workbench screen, which is quite
strange on an interlaced WB. I hope Central Coast gets this program
cleaned up, the Amiga market needs tools like this…
John,
I'd probably feel the way you do if I had the same problems with QB, but I
don't. QB has worked fine for me. I just got QB Tools and am in the process
of reading the manual, so I haven't really put it through its paces yet.
Since it's just version 1.0, I'm sure they'll fix any initial bugs quickly.
Dom Fontana
Last weekend, I bought QB Tools and got the 1.0 version. This weekend, I
stopped by the same dealer and they were selling version 1.2a which
supposedly addresses some of the bugs. Heck! The serial number of my disk
and the disk that the guy at the store weren't that far off either!
I wonder if they have a BBS where we can get updates instead of sending
them your disk every so often.
Dan McCoy 73617,2626
– via Whap!
I think our disk had a date of October 19, 1990 in the "readme". What did
yours say?
The README on my QBT disk (v1.0) has the same date – October 19, 1990.
Mike
BerksAmiga BBS (Reading, PA) 215-372-4553
24 hrs – 12/2400 – 100 megs – latest 50 Fish disks
More bad news about Quarterback Tools. On one of the partitions on which
we used its de-fragmenter, the PageStream executable suddenly became
unloadable. We suspected that the de-frag process disrupted the disk, and
using 'cmp', we found that the file on disk differed from the master disk
at a certain byte offset that just happened to be one byte past a 512 byte
boundary – exactly what you'd expect if something put the wrong block in
the wrong place.
All files on my disk (outside of more) are dated either on the 18th or the
19th of October, 1990. I believe the 1.2a release had the "release-notes"
and "Tools" files dated the 27th. I also received an invoice with a
Quarterback 4.2 update that mentioned the 1.2a release with a phone number
for technical support for Quarterback Tools (Charlie Fair at 316-686-2093).
– via Whap!
Dan,
Yes, your wish has come true! Charlie Fair is CCS's beta tester, at
least for Quarterback Tools. Charlie has a BBS, through which you can
obtain updates to QBTools. The BBS is called "The Flatlands BBS", and the
number is (316)686-0870. The only requirements for the update are that CCS
must already have your registration card on file, and you'll have to
provide Charlie with the serial number from your QBT master disk.
I, like you, bought QBT very recently, and found it to have many bugs,
er, problems. After reorganizing each partition on my HD (a 100 meg
Quantum), the program hung. Did a great job on the HD, though.
BTW, the BBS processes FidoNet mail from 4 to 6 AM (Mountain time), so
don't call during those hours. You'll still connect, but the system will
tell you to hang up.
Mike
BerksAmiga BBS (Reading, PA) 215-372-4553
24 hrs – 12/2400 – 100 megs – latest 50 Fish disks
Thanks for the news on Charlie Fair's BBS. Looks like I'll give it a call
today with the serial number at hand!
A friend brought over 1.2a last week and I gave it a shot optimizing a
partition after I backed it up. It didn't hang up after optimizing and it
asked me to reboot once it was done. Now that partition is FAST! I think
the DIR program I uses spends more time sorting the information than
reading it!
Thanks again! Dan McCoy 73617,2626
– via Whap!
I forget. Does anyone know if QbTools is 2.0/3000 compatible?
— Ethan
The book states that QuarterBack Tools is fully compatible with the A3000
and 2.0. So far I have been using it and it seems they are right! 🙂