ca063@unocss.UUCP (Thomas Davis) (08/27/88)
As the subject line says, I found a disk of mine that now has an infinite
loop in the directory. That's right, it just repeats itself after 3
filenames. Now, here's how it happened:
First, we have to describe the environment; I was using Lattice 4.01,
ARP, FACC, 1.5 meg Amiga 1000, 3 drives, KS/WB 1.2, and one tired person (me!).
Now, take one file, (I was working on a PD make (it works!)), and
copy it to a disk you don't want it on. Realize that you didn't want it on that
disk, and copy to the disk you REALLY wanted it on. Now, this is the REAL
tricky part! Go to delete the file off the disk you don't want it on, BUT
pull the disk out BEFORE the drive light goes on! The File system will say
something about YOU must put it back. I did so. The red drive light goes on,
off. Do a directory of the disk, and what's still there? The File. So,
being the determined type, I decide to TRY and delete it again. Guess what?
Yes, that deadly task held requester comes up. The guru was "key already
free", if I remember right. Being tired, I put the disk aside to look at it
the next chance I had.
Next day, I power up the Amiga. I decide to take a quick look
at that File again. Yes, it's still there. I can copy it off the disk,
and I can get a directory listing of it, but what happens when I try
again to delete it? That's right, task held again. But when I
click on the 'cancel' button, what this? The Amiga just sits. No guru
number. Nothing. It's not even blinking the power led. Oh boy, I thought..
What have I done now? Give the Amiga the pinch. Ahh.. Blinking power led.
What's this? The df0: drive goes on, and then BACK off.. Uh? I
thought, that's strange.. That's a bootable Workbench disk! Wait!
The hand on the monitor is, YES! I blew away KICKSTART! It wants the
Kickstart disk! My god! It's TRUE! You can blow away Kickstart in a
guru!
Stunned, I turned off the Amiga, and went to bed. The next day,
I powered the Amiga up again. Now, I decided let's play with the
corrupted disk, this time to see what I can find out about it. I copied
three files to that disk, and guess what I have now? The Infinite Loop
Directory. So, yes, it's possible to totally screw the disk up, and not
have AmigaDOS complain one bit about it.
The moral of this story? 1. If you use disk caching, WAIT about
5-10secs BEFORE pulling the disk out of the drive. 2. You can blow
the Amiga 1000 back to asking for KickStart 1.2. 3. When the hand is
faster than the brain, GO TO BED.
That's my horror story about the Amiga. Now, I do have one question
for everybody who read this far; Is there a recoverable ram disk that can
survive the reboot from Kickstart of an Amiga 1000? My VD0: does survive
on warm-boots, (and that's with 1 meg of ram at $C00000!).
Oh, and please, don't send mail saying how to recover the disk.
I ALWAYS use backups when I attempt to program the Amiga, and I'll
probably just format over it..
--
Internet : ca063%unocss.unl.edu@RELAY.CS.NET | Thomas Davis
BitNet : conslt16@unoma1 | Consultant, Campus Computing
UUCP : uunet!btni!unocss!ca063 | U. of Neb. @ Omaha, NEpage@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) (08/30/88)
ca063@unocss.UUCP (Thomas Davis) wrote: >The moral ... When the hand is faster than the brain, GO TO BED. Good advice in almost any situation. >Is there a recoverable ram disk that can survive the reboot from >Kickstart of an Amiga 1000? The KS process clears all memory. So unless somebody has a write lock switch on their RAM board, no (I think you'd have to have it write enabled for config and autosizing, then know when to flip it to protect it from being cleared. Not an easy task). ..Bob -- Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept. page@swan.ulowell.edu ulowell!page "What a wonder is USENET; such wholesale production of conjecture from such a trifling investment in fact." -- Carl S. Gutekunst
blgardne@esunix.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) (09/01/88)
From article <8818@swan.ulowell.edu>, by page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page): > ca063@unocss.UUCP (Thomas Davis) wrote: >>The moral ... When the hand is faster than the brain, GO TO BED. > > Good advice in almost any situation. > >>Is there a recoverable ram disk that can survive the reboot from >>Kickstart of an Amiga 1000? > > The KS process clears all memory. So unless somebody has a write > lock switch on their RAM board, no (I think you'd have to have it > write enabled for config and autosizing, then know when to flip it > to protect it from being cleared. Not an easy task). I beg to differ here. I've got ASDG's 2M board in a Minirack C, and (of course) I'm running VD0: (sized at about 1.5M as I remember). When the ChangeKickStart program came out just after 1.2 was released I was using it to reboot with 1.1 so I could play those brain-damaged Electronic Arts games that required 1.1. (BTW, ChangeKickStart just does a reboot that leaves you at the KickStart prompt.) Every time that I went from 1.2 to 1.1 then back to 1.2, my VD0: was still intact. I don't recall ever trying a ChangeKickStart from 1.2 to 1.2, but I don't see why that wouldn't work too. If the KickStart process really does clear memory, it must be just the 512K of Chip RAM that gets blasted. As far as I can see there is no write protect switch on my ASDG card. :-) -- Blaine Gardner @ Evans & Sutherland 580 Arapeen Drive, SLC, Utah 84108 UUCP Addresses: {ucbvax,allegra,decvax}!decwrl!esunix!blgardne utah-cs!esunix!blgardne usna!esunix!blgardne "Nobody will ever need more than 64K." "Nobody needs multitasking on a PC."
page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) (09/04/88)
I wrote: >The KS process clears all memory. A few people replied: >ChangeKickStart doesn't clear memory. Sorry for not being exact. Simply loading KS doesn't clear memory, cold booting your amiga does. I consider that 'the KS process' (loading KS from the boot rom); using ChangeKickStart just allows you to load a different one. ..Bob -- Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept. page@swan.ulowell.edu ulowell!page "What a wonder is USENET; such wholesale production of conjecture from such a trifling investment in fact." -- Carl S. Gutekunst
ejkst@cisunx.UUCP (Eric J. Kennedy) (09/07/88)
In article <8818@swan.ulowell.edu> page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) writes: >ca063@unocss.UUCP (Thomas Davis) wrote: >>Is there a recoverable ram disk that can survive the reboot from >>Kickstart of an Amiga 1000? >The KS process clears all memory. So unless somebody has a write >lock switch on their RAM board, no (I think you'd have to have it >write enabled for config and autosizing, then know when to flip it >to protect it from being cleared. Not an easy task). This is not true. I don't know the details, but I do know that it is possible. I've crashed all the way to the kickstart prompt and had vd0: still recover. In the "old days" when I would have to switch back and forth between KS 1.1 and 1.2 to run Transformer 1.1, I would use the ChangeKickStart utility. I would run ChangeKickStart, reboot, insert Kickstart 1.1, Workbench 1.1, run Transformer, reboot, run ChangeKickStart, insert KS 1.2, WB 1.2, and VD0: was still there. Every time. VD0: was in my external 2Meg Starboard II, and I did _NOT_ configure the StarBoard II under 1.1. Doing so would clear it out, and VD0: would go bye bye. -- ------------ Eric Kennedy ejkst@cisunx.UUCP
andy@cbmvax.UUCP (Andy Finkel) (09/09/88)
In article <12361@cisunx.UUCP> ejkst@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Eric J. Kennedy) writes: >In article <8818@swan.ulowell.edu> page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) writes: >>ca063@unocss.UUCP (Thomas Davis) wrote: >>>Is there a recoverable ram disk that can survive the reboot from >>>Kickstart of an Amiga 1000? > >>The KS process clears all memory. So unless somebody has a write Different pools, different rules :-) Whether memory gets cleared or stepped on depends on whether its fast, chip, ranger (C00000) ... so you're all right. -- andy finkel {uunet|rutgers|amiga}!cbmvax!andy Commodore-Amiga, Inc. "If we can't fix it, it ain't broke." Any expressed opinions are mine; but feel free to share. I disclaim all responsibilities, all shapes, all sizes, all colors.