Excellence!Amiga Help!
18 messages in this thread
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My Amiga 500 is doing strange things anyway in last several wks.: Saying
Read/Write error on disks that it then accepts after several "retrys".
Finding heretofore fine disks "corrupt" with "hard errors" ( never had this
before, tho' I'm using it 5x as much as before, doing multitasking for the
first time, etc. I has a double external drive. The internal 1 meg. mem.
plus external box of 1 meg. (hope I'm saying that right). The corrupt disks
always happen in the external drives. And that problem seems to be less
lately. I had a box of Kodak disks, several of which showed up corrupt soon
on, with hard surface corruption. I thought it was the disks. But the
Excellence file disk was an old one.
Any comments, suggestions well be appreciated.
* Donna *
John,
A quick thing to try is to go into Amiga Preferences and set it for "Gray
Scale" rather than "Black & White" printing. With some printer drivers,
the wrong "Threshold" value in black & white printing will print a black
background. Setting the printout for gray scale will avoid this problem
entirely.
James Bayless
New Horizons Software, Inc.
Thanks for the response. It isn't that, though. Maybe I didn't explain it
well. It prints two bands, THEN prints the files correctly following the
bands. It's not a black background. I'm so happy to get a response that I
don't mind that it won't solve the problem! 🙂
Donna
Two things:
a) NEVER use diskdoctor, except as a last resort. In the future, go to the
AmigaTech forum libs and get DiskSalv (can't remember which lib, but it's
probably Tools).
b) You may well have a weirded out disk. Can you reconstruct it to a good
disk?
c) Have you plugged anything in or out of an Amiga port with the machine
running? (Keyboard, mouse, joystick, printer, sound digitizer, etc.) This
is a bad thing to do on any machine, but especially the Amiga. There are
two special chips (CIA chips) which are VERY sensitive to static
electricity. If you lunch one of them, you can have strange, seemingly
random errors in input and output devices, problems similar to the ones you
describe.
So, if reconstructing the excellence! setup on disks you are reasonably
sure are new, and of good quality, doesn't help, you might have a service
shop check out your CIA chips. They're not all that expensive — $14 each,
I think.
Ray Lewis
Ray: You, too, are a good guy. Thanks for the thoughtful response to my
call for help. Jake tells me we have DiskSalv, but never figured how to use
it. I'll work with it and call for help if I can't get it going. As far as
I know, neither of us has unplugged anything from the Amiga with it
running. Could it be that my power supply is going up? Wait, just
remembered that I unplugged the Phoenix extra mem. box while the Amiga was
running once. Could that have done It?
* Donna *
Donna, plugging in or unplugging ANYTHING with the machine running can
cause problems. Let's hope that you were lucky.
Ray Lewis
Ray: I think I panicked. I didn't unplug the Phoenix from the computer. I
merely unplugged the Phoenix box from the socket. I don't think that's what
you meant. I think you meant unplugging anything from the computer itself.
Didn't you? Please say yes.
* Donna *
Donna,
Pulling the plug from the socket is not too likely to cause serious
problems. Removing anything from the machine is almost certain to blow
something. The thing least likely to cause serious problems is an RS-232
device. It is supposedly possible to unplug (or plug) those in with no
problems.
……Betty
Good. Didn't think that should hurt anything, but it did crash the machine
at the time. So I wouldn't say it doesn't cause _any_ problems – but
hopefully no _permanent_ ones! Didn't try it again.
* db *
Yews, I meant from the computer itself. I wouldn't think that unplugging a
peripheral from a power source would necessarily cause a problem.
Ray Lewis
Relief. Good. Like I said, I think I panicked while trying to figure out
what my problems were. Seems pretty calm right now. Though my PgS font disk
brought up the "Read/Write error" tonight – 4 retrys and it worked fine.
Weird. Thought I might have a virus the other day, so many weird things
were happening. Thanks for the reassurance re: my unplug.
* db * I will NEVER unplug anything from the computer
when it's running tho'. I have the word.
donna
First of all – DiskSalv is in Library 14 of AmigaTech. Don't know how
anyone can live without DiskSalv. It can salvage unbelievably bad disks.
Secondly – are you the same Donna Bickley who wrote the article in Flower
and Garden magazine for April? If so, I enjoyed the article.
……Betty
Betty: Yeah, Jake tells me we have DiskSalv, but haven't learned how to use
it. I'll take on learning it.
Yeah, I'm the same Donna Bickley. Glad you enjoyed the article. Thanks for
noticing. You must be a gardener. Do you ever hang around Good Earth?
* Donna *
I haven't been over to Good Earth, but probably need to go. My gardening
has been terribly neglected for a few years, but it is time to get at it
again. We moved last year, and the new (to us) place has an excellent
layout, but things have come to a terrible state. I shall have to replace
most of the plantings as I get to it. Nice vegetable patch, though, and I
have edible things growing there already.
Disksalv is really easy to use. You put a formatted disk into one drive to
receive the information, say df1: Then type:
Disksalv df0: to df1:
You will be prompted to put the sick disk into df0:, and when you signal
the system that you are all ready, it just goes to work and saves off
everything it can read to the clean disk. Your old disk is not touched, so
you still have another chance to work on it if even Disksalv fails. That
is a *mighty* rare thing.
……Betty
Betty: Thanks for both msgs. Do visit GoodEarth. Some very knowledgable
folks there. I don't hang out on the public boards much, as I am VERY busy
getting to know the folks on the Garden Writers Assoc. member private
section. But if you have a gardening ? – esp. perennials or herbs, drop me
a msg. on Good Earth.
Especial thanks for telling me how to use DiskSalv and what it does. I was
just about to send a help msg. to find out, as I wasn't completely clear
from my fooling with it today.
* Donna *
I'll look for you. Love perennials. Don't cook enough to spend the time
on herbs. They are interesting, tho. I do have chives and mint about.
So, we can exchange – you know the perennials, I can (maybe) be of help
with the AMiga. See you again.
……Betty
Of course, ask away re: the perennials. You've already helped us (John –
jb, that is – and me) a LOT!! I love to ANSWER questions, but don't get to
do that much on this forum, cause I'm the one with all the QUESTIONS here!!
* db *
I'll be over to your place soon, then. Love flowers. And ask away over
here. I'm always glad to help out when I can.