#Hard Disk Crash
12 messages in this thread
Don,
Well, after 9 months I finally had my first HD crash. I had a power glitch
(luckily, very rare) while writing to my CLtd HD. The glitch was fast enough so
that my Amiga did not lose its mind, but my disk drive sat there and clucked to
itself for a while with the LED flashing for about 5 minutes and then settled
down. I was then able to read and write to the HD with no problems. To be sure
I had not corrupted the system, I rebooted. I was promptly informed my HD was
no longer a DOS disk.
As an experiment I decided to try Diskdoctor (I know, I know, but I was
curious). We had a similar problem with our PAL Sr. drive at work and were told
by BYTE by BYTE to use Diskdoctor to ressurect it. If you haven't tried it, it
renames your HD Lazarus. Nice touch. With our PAL it worked great. When I tried
it on my CLtd, it didn't work quite so well. It read all 600 and something
tracks and then started replacing files. It came with 7 files it listed as
corrupted and ask if I wanted to delete them. I did. All seem to be OK reading
the drive, however when I tried to write to it, Amy said the drive was not
validated. When I did an info from CLI, it said the drive was validating. I
then rebooted and the drive spent about 5 mins during the s-s and then gave me
a system requestor saying "Error validating disk Key 13532 – bad extension"
When I clicked "cancel" another one came up and told the "disk structure
corrupt. Use diskdoctor" After this, I could read the HD but still not write to
it. Info says it is validating. However after waiting overnight, it was still
validating. I repeated using diskdoctor and got exactly the same results.
Of course I can't use Dave Haynie's Disksalvage without another 24 meg HD. Out
of curiousity I still would like to see if I can recover the drive without
reformatting. Any ideas on how to get the drive to validate?
Anyone else have any ideas?
Later, Greg
Greg,
A few ideas…both of which have worked for me during testing:
1. Look for a 0 length file (more than likely, the file you were
writting at the time of the crash) and delete it. That may or may not help.
2. Copy the files one at a time until you get a system error on a file
and delete that file.
Now…I know that #2 sounds like an awful lot of work…depending on
how much RAM you have and how your HD is organized…it can be very easy to do.
If you have a relatively well organized HD and no huge files on it and at least
1 Meg of RAM, then open a 2nd CLI via the NEWCLI command. In that new CLI, cd
to ram: and do likewise in your original CLI.
Ok, now from one of the CLI's (it doesn't matter which) type the
following:
COPY DH0: RAM: ALL
This will go thru and attempt to copy the HD into RAM: and create
subdirectories as it goes. MAKE NOTE of which directories and subdirectories
are being created…it's important! Obviously, soon, you'll get a system
requester telling your that ram: is full. Not to worry….go to the other CLI
and delete the directores that have already been copied using the DELETE
<directory> ALL command. The reason you need to keep track of which
directories and/or sub-directories are being copied is that you won't be able
to delete the directory that it is presently trying to write to when ram:
filled up and the DIR command won't work once RAM: gets full! There is no RAM
left for DIR to use to sort. Ok, once you've deleted some directories and/or
subdirectories (get as many as you can) then hit the RETRY gadget in the system
requester telling your RAM: is full (it's not now). Also click on the CLI
window that is doing the copies.
As long as you have no individual files that are bigger than RAM can
hold…this will work. At some point, you'll come across a file that can't be
copied due to the bad extension….that's the file you want to delete.
Once you delete that file…and after waiting a reasonable amount of
time for the drive to quit doing it's thing….re-boot and the drive should now
validate.
Don
Don,
I appreciate all your help in this. I have found the problem. Apparently there
is a bad file in one particular directory. When ever I try to list this
directory in any way whatsoever, I get a "disk error – task held" GURU. No
matter what, I just get the first 39 files and then the system locks up.
Unfortunately I have no idea what the name of the bad file is, and I see no way
to find out. So I can't try to delete it. I guess I could try to "delete#?",
but was hoping to avoid this. Any more ideas?
Later,
Greg
Greg,
Yup…try what I said before, try copying that directory to ram: and as
it's doing the copy, it will list the filenames one at a time, you'll see the
filename and then get the guru.
copy <directory> ram: all
That should do it. Once you find the filename, then
delete <directory>/filename
and hopefully that should take care of it. Again, you'll probably have
to reboot to get the drive to reverify. But this time it should go ok.
Remember to do the copy from a separate CLI so that you can go to RAM: and
delete files if RAM: fills up and then hit the RETRY gadget in the system
requester that will be displayed if RAM: fills up.
Try it and let me know how it works, it _should_ work ok.
Don
Don,
Nope. Won't work. It's reformat time.
Greg,
Just ran across the same problem last nite. Had a file go bad. When I
try to access the file in anyway, GURU time. Solution? Grab your Saf-T-Net, do
a backup (full or incremental) excluding that file. Format your HD, then
restore from the back. That's the only solution. IF the file went bad because
of a hard error, you may have to reprep and map that sector out.
Steve,
In a case like that, i would use Sectorama, go into that directory, and
unlink the bad file. It requires a bit of knowledge about the filing system,
but it's all there in the Amigados manual from bantam (or the Amigados Tech Ref
manual from CBM).
Regards, Larry.
Didn't think of that! Oh well, maybe next time. It reinforces the need to
have a current backup, tho!
Sure does Steve! There really is no subsitute for a current backup. A file
unlinked is a file gone, unless you have it backed up.
Regards, Larry.
Steve,
How do you like Saf-T-Net, by the way? How does it compare to, lets say
BRU2 or Steve Drew's Backup?
Lloyd
Saf-T-Net is a real HD backup program not a half hearted attempt like BRU2 and
Backup. It's not as nice as some available in the MS-DOS world, but, I think
it's the best currently available for Amiga.
Steve,
Thanks. That's what I thought. Now if only someone could come out with
a "Fastback" type of HD backup!
Lloyd