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Conference hydra::amiga_v1

Title:	AMIGA NOTES
Notice:	Join us in the NEW conference - HYDRA::AMIGA_V2
Moderator:	HYDRA::MOORE

Created:	Sat Apr 26 1986
Last Modified:	Wed Feb 05 1992
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	5378
Total number of notes:	38326

2696.0. "Hard disk problems" by TALLIS::JFOLEY () Wed Jun 28 1989 13:47

	Hello;

	   I'm having some spooky hard disk problems.  I have
	a 40MB GVP hardcard in an Amiga 2000, arranged in two 20MB
	partitions.  When I copy files around on the hard disc, 
	the files that get written seem to be getting munged.  For 
	example, I download <something>.zoo and extract it without
	errors.  Then I make a few copies of <something>.zoo to
	other directories and extract them, and get different
	error counts on each file.  Or I copy an executable from a 
	floppy, and get a "not an object file" message when I try to 
	run it.  Then I copy it again to the same place, and the program 
	crashes in mid-execution.  I copy it again and it runs fine.

	   I took the cpu and hard drive to Omnitek, where I bought
	both about six months ago.  The fix-it man there told me I had 
	a corrupted directory structure, but couldn't find anything 
	wrong with the hardware.  He recommended backing up the disk 
	and re-formatting it.  So I did that, and I'm still having the
	same problems.

	   So has anyone seen something like this before?  Is it a case
	of bad blocks (GVP's format procedure should have caught this,
	I think) or something else?


	   Thanks,

				- Jim

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
2696.1		HPSCAD::GATULIS	Frank Gatulis	`Wed Jun 28 1989 14:34`	21
	Jim, I have the same drive and saw a similar problem only once and that's when I corrupted the disk myself (accidentally). Once that happens the world seems to turn to sh.. What occurs to me is that a backup/reformat/restore may not work. I'm not sure of this but it seems that if you back up corrupted data, you'll restore corrupted data. It may be painful but I think I'd try re-formating and then start rebuilding from original floppies rather than a saveset that I wasn't sure about. Let me qualify that: I think go back to the floppies for the executables and the back ups for any data files. If you want to do any experiments and don't mind traveling to Medway, you'd be welcome to try your drive in my system. Good Luck Frank
2696.2		HPSCAD::GATULIS	Frank Gatulis	`Wed Jun 28 1989 14:37`	7
	re .1 Don't know that it's relevant but I've not converted to the fast file system. Still running the standard 2 x 20 meg partitions. Frank
2696.3	I didn't really do a backup	TALLIS::JFOLEY		`Wed Jun 28 1989 15:19`	14
	It occured to me that if the directory structure was corrupted, that backing it up might not be a good idea. So I copied the files that I wanted to save to floppies, initialized the disk, and copied the files back to the hard disk. Perhaps doing a "copy dh0:<dir> df0:<dir> all" might have propogated the problem. I am running with FFS, 2x20M partitions, plus the invisible partition the GVP setup creates for booting. Thanks for offering to let me use your system. I'd like to see what other people have to say about this situation before we get that experimental. - Jim
2696.4	ZOO Problem?	DICKNS::MACDONALD	WA1OMM 7.093/145.05/223.58 AX.25	`Wed Jun 28 1989 18:17`	7
	Sounds like a ZOO problem. I have heard of it before, but can't put my finger on it. Do you check the integrity of the ZOO file before extracting it? Also, the current version of ZOO is 2.01. Is that what you are using? 2.00 had a buggette. Paul
2696.5	ARP COPY?	DICKNS::MACDONALD	WA1OMM 7.093/145.05/223.58 AX.25	`Wed Jun 28 1989 18:19`	2
	Oh, yea ... and if you are using ARP COPY command from the V1.1 release of ARP, you'll probably corrupt a directory too.
2696.6		HPSCAD::GATULIS	Frank Gatulis	`Wed Jun 28 1989 19:15`	9
	It's funny someone mentioned a possible ZOO problem because that's exactly how I corrupted my hard disk in the first place. I hadn't put 2 and 2 together earlier but it makes sense. My directories got corrupted after downloading and playing with a bunch of fonts which were in ZOO format. Hmmmm!
2696.7		TALLIS::JFOLEY		`Wed Jun 28 1989 19:24`	9
	I have problems with non-zoo'd files too. For example, when I copied Dr. T's KCS to the hard drive, sometimes it ran and sometimes it crashed. I'm running ARP v1.3 with it's copy command, although I believe some of the problems I'm seeing predate my instalation of ARP.
2696.8	I'm not the only one?	SMAUG::SPODARYK	Scaring the pedestrians...	`Wed Jun 28 1989 20:07`	15
	Bitten by the ZOO bug, eh? See note 2517.* for my painful saga. Basically, I ended up Quarterbacking-up everything that the system would automatically recognize. Then I backed up the directories that I could access, but did not show up using a dir command. Like my Lattice, games, etc. Of course I did forget a few small directories like my S:, etc, but no biggie. :^< No utility to rebuild disks did a thing! That's how throughly ZOO mangled the directory structure. I must say it did do an excellent job at that! I won't get started on how pi**ed off I am that an archiving utility can ruin several meg of data. Steve - normally very easy going, unless there's a severe loss of data
2696.9	Is it a memory problem ?	CHPSC::STEIGER		`Thu Jun 29 1989 16:55`	8
	Are you sure, that you do not have a problem with possible memory extensions ? GVP controllers do not go with all memory add on's. Could problem be caused by the transfer between the memory and the disk rather than by the software or the drive itself. I own a GVP 80Mb drive with 2Mb internal RAM. The dealer had to change the 100nS Drams into 80nS to make the stuff work. He claims that this was the deal they have with the manufacturer.
2696.10		TALLIS::JFOLEY		`Thu Jun 29 1989 17:20`	7
	Nope, I don't think that could be it. I have the original 1MB that comes with a stock 2000. Tonite I'll try re-formatting the disk again, and running some programs without using zoo; that should determine if zoo is the problem. Where can I get a copy of zoo v2.1?