UD140469@NDSUVM1.BITNET.UUCP (02/14/87)
I've recently been running into some trouble with disk space dissappearing from
my double sided disks. Strange things have been happening on and off for a
long time, but I haven't been paying any attention to it because, until today,
it seemed a random occurence. Here's the background that finally made me
decide to ask about it: I own TDI's modula 2 (developer's version), and today
I decided to try compiling some of their sample programs (I don't really know
Modula yet--I was just curious with what was on the disk). I thought, to save
time and effort, I'd put the compiler, linker, editor, and related include/link
files on one disk. The diks in question started out blank, with the 726,000
or so bytes free. I created a folder called TDISTUFF and put all the .LNK,
.SYM, and .DEF files into it. Next I copied the folder containing the files
SYM, and .DEF files into it. Next I copied the folder containing the files
controlling the various passes of the compiler onto the subject disk. Finally,
into the root directory I copied the editor, compiler, linker, and related
files. So, two folders, one with 108 (!) files, another with 8 files, and a
base directory with maybe a dozen files. I then did "disk information" and
got the following results:
632722 bytes used
20480 bytes free
-----------------
653202 bytes total
That leaves about 72000 bytes unaccounted for. Are these bytes used elsewhere,
but not counted as bytes used (in FATs, etc.)? Or might something be wrong
in my computer. I tried compiling a program, ran out of room, deleted a file
I didn't need, and did a disk information, getting the following:
622482 bytes used
8192 bytes free
-----------------
630674 bytes total
Now that's even less than before, and I DELETED a file (something's fishey
here). A couple of facts to point out--I'm using a fairly old ram disk (a
202k one), one that I've noticed only lets me put about 20 files into it, even
if I haven't used up all of its space. My computer (one of the very first 520s
with 512k, an SF354 & SF 314 drives) has been having some trouble--when I
power up I sometimes get only bombs, or a blank screen (Atari and everyone
else tells me loose connections or a micro-crack on the PC board)--but it seems
to work okay if it gets past the boot stage. For this reason, I leave the
computer (not drives or monitor) on all the time (that's why I'm not using one
of the new 'eternal' ram disks).
To finally ask THE question: is it my hardware/ramdisk/not-turning-the-
computer off, or is it something in GEM/TOS that's causing disappearing disk
space? Maybe it only happens on disks with LOTS of files, and that's why I
didn't notice it consistantly earlier. Whatever.
Any help you could give would be *greatly* appreciated. I hope it's not
my drive causing problems (it's allright if it's my ST, because that's going
to be replace anyway.
Thank you very much,
Scott Udell
P.S. About replacing sick 520's: Atari has a pretty good return policy if you
have a 520 that's sick: send the computer and $95 to them and they'll replace
the motherboard with a completely new one. In fact, when I talked to the
fellow at the technical support number that I called, he gave me the impression
that I'd get a completly new computer, not just a new motherboard (maybe that's
because my current case couldn't fit a motherboard with the r/f modulator on
it because there's no hole for the modulator). Also, the $95 includes return
shipping, and the whole process should take 3-4 weeks. The address I was
given was:
Atari
Attn door #17
390 Caribbean Ave.
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
It sounds like a pretty good deal to me.csan@its63b.UUCP (02/16/87)
In article <8702140040.AA01809@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> UD140469@NDSUVM1.BITNET (Scott Udell) writes: >I've recently been running into some trouble with disk space dissappearing from >my double sided disks. Strange things have been happening on and off for a >long time, but I haven't been paying any attention to it because, until today, I found this as well .... What I think *MIGHT* be happening is this :- When a file is saved on disk , it takes up a number of slots (I think they are about 2K long) . Even if the file is empty , it takes up 2K . So having empty files lying around is not economical . I assume directories take up this 2K thing as well . The FAT trak doesnt need to be extended I dont think as it already holds enough information for a disk full of blank files . This may all be totally wrong ... These are just my thoughts on the matter . Andie Ness . Department of Computer Science EDINBURGH University. ARPA: csan%ed.itspna@ucl-cs.arpa UUCP: ...!seismo!mcvax!ukc!itspna!csan JANET: csan@uk.ac.ed.itspna % These are my own views and any resemblance to any coherent reasoning is % probably a typo. % % "The back row strikes again!"
fischer-michael@YALE.ARPA.UUCP (02/16/87)
In-reply-to: Scott Udell <UD140469%NDSUVM1.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
I've recently been running into some trouble with disk space
dissappearing from my double sided disks.
The FAT and directories do take some space away from the total,
but the 72K you report seems excessive, and the fact that you have
LESS space after deleting a file suggests that you might be having disk
problems. I believe that DOS will mark a block in the FAT as unusable
if it decides the block is bad. Perhaps your disk head is dirty or the
drive has gotten out of alignment so that DOS frequently encounters
unreadable blocks. Does this happen on freshly formatted disks or only
ones that you have had around for awhile? You can try deleting everying
from the disk and see if you again have 726,016 bytes available or some
smaller number.
Another possible source of space lossage results from having many
short files. Blocks on the disk are allocated 2 sectors at a time,
so each file uses up at least 1024 bytes. I think the SHOW INFO
desktop function reports only the bytes actually contained in the
file, so the unused bytes at the end of each file are also disappeared
space. Thus, 116 files, each with an average of 512 unused bytes at the
end, could easily account for another 59,000 missing bytes.
If you are still using TOS in RAM, then it is possible that you are
overwriting TOS in a way to cause disk problems. I also used to have
mysterious floppy problems when I was running TOS in RAM on an early 520ST.
Those problems have not occurred on my 1040's with TOS in ROM, suggesting
that there might also have been a TOS bug that was fixed in the ROM version.
Anyone at Atari want to comment on this?
--Mike Fischer <fischer@yale.arpa>
-------ladasky@codon3.berkeley.edu (John Ladasky;1021 Solano No. 2;528-8666) (11/29/89)
I just had something terribly unpleasant happen to me... I'm using
Dr T's Copyist to assemble PostScript files of my music. For those of you
who have worked with PostScript, you're aware that files can be pretty huge -
up to 300k/page. Anyway, I have a bunch of disks onto each of which I had
placed a Copyist source file and a PostScript file. I deleted the old Post-
Script files in anticipation of updating them - and lo and behold, the amount
of free space on the disk did NOT increase!
Not that I normally check the amount of free space on a disk after a
deletion - I found this out the hard way. The PostScript file converter in
the Copyist spins your disk for about 30 minutes continuously (shame on them
for not writing it to memory and saving it all at once!), and about 15 minutes
into the process, each of my disks came up with a "file creation or write
error" (I love how specific this message is, too). That was when I checked
the disk space.
Now, I just did the deleting operation from the TOS desktop - nothing
fancy (I don't have 1.4 yet). I might have thought it was a fluke except
that it occurred on three different disks. Does anyone have any idea how
this might have happened?
T CROSS POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE LINE DO NOT CR
_______________________________________________________________________________
"Do unto others as you would like - John J. Ladasky ("ii")
to do unto them. " Richard Bach (ladasky@enzyme.berkeley.edu)hcj@lzaz.ATT.COM (HC Johnson) (11/30/89)
In article <1989Nov29.035921.1943@agate.berkeley.edu>, ladasky@codon3.berkeley.edu (John Ladasky;1021 Solano No. 2;528-8666) writes: > > I just had something terribly unpleasant happen to me... I'm using > Dr T's Copyist to assemble PostScript files of my music. For those of you > > into the process, each of my disks came up with a "file creation or write > error" (I love how specific this message is, too). That was when I checked > the disk space. when a process opens and is writing a file doesn't close it properly the directory info is not correct but the fats are lost. I use fsck (posted here sometime) to recover the space from my hard disk. I guess just reformatting is the best for floppies. Howard C. Johnson ATT Bell Labs att!lzaz!hcj hcj@lzaz.att.com