exodus@uop.edu (G.Onufer) (01/25/88)
Just in case this should happen to any fellow HD owners... Configuration: -Atari SH204, replaced the Tandem drive with a Micropolis 1304 (a la SUN Corp). -Runs with the Supra Autoboot program, foldrxxx.prg, Beckemeyer's Hd accelerator. -Formatted with the Supra Software (and possibly this time with the ICD software... I cannot remember) Problem: I ran Supra's partition check software in the 'destroy' mode on Partition 'D' (~13 Megs). Partition 'E' was trashed afterwards. Diagnosis: Partition 'D' possibly had an 'orphan' sector at the end which was not part of a clustor. Might be caused by either Supra's or ICD's partitioning software. Supra's Partition check program assumed it _was_ part of a cluster and tested the _next_ sector also... Partition E's logical boot sector. That sector was found to have the Test pattern in it (the ASCII set over and over). Cure: Made my own logical boot sector for Drive 'E' ... creating and testing the it as I went. (Re-boot each time you change a boot sector -- only way to get the computer to recognize the new values). DLII and Disk Doctor are essential. DLII for its checking capabilities. Disk Doctor because it will let you edit a partition with a mangled boot sector-- DLII will _not_. Planning ahead: Besides the usual backups, keep around a dump of the boot sectors of all of your partitions as well as the physical boot sector of the drive. Otherwise you will have to re-format your drive after recovering as much data as possible from the one messed up partition. It's a good idea anyways. Perform an image backup (i.e. Tom Hudson's Backup Program from STart) every once in a while if your are in the Turtle Camp. The image backup can save your life and takes little time (just more disks). **** Now, if anybody has any other clues to why this happened to me (or why I am wrong), Please let me know. I spent 5 hours re-constructing the mangled partition to get the recent, un-backed-up, work that was on it. It wasn't fun. Possibly some disk/directory editors that had a mode for fixing disks... DLII bombs if something in the BPB (BIOS Parameter Block) is even slightly wrong. Disk Doctor did some strange things (filled my monochrome screen with static, or something pretty close). [That was a hint, btw. I don't have the time, but someone may have!]. DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU. DO NOT BELIEVE A PROGRAM'S "NON-DESTRUCTIVE" MODE or that it will restrict its actions to a particular area of memory or disk. G. Onufer exodus@uop.edu
jmg@cernvax.UUCP (jmg) (01/28/88)
In article <966@uop.edu> exodus@uop.edu (G.Onufer) writes: > -Runs with the Supra Autoboot program, foldrxxx.prg, Beckemeyer's Hd > accelerator. Does this hard Disk accelerator work well? Having, like many people, a lot of stuff on the hard disk it gets painful to put new files on it. Simon's reorg program helps a bit, but ... Also, if good is it part of a wider package or on sale as is?
exodus@uop.edu (G.Onufer) (01/31/88)
In article <611@cernvax.UUCP>, jmg@cernvax.UUCP (jmg) writes: > In article <966@uop.edu> exodus@uop.edu (G.Onufer) writes: > > -Runs with the Supra Autoboot program, foldrxxx.prg, Beckemeyer's Hd > > accelerator. > Does this hard Disk accelerator work well? Having, like many people, a > lot of stuff on the hard disk it gets painful to put new files on it. > Simon's reorg program helps a bit, but ... > Also, if good is it part of a wider package or on sale as is? It helps on reading directories, not on creating or writing ... My suggestion is: Do a diskcheck with dlii. If all is well, write a file to that partition which fills up the partition to maybe %5 free. Run dlii again and reorg. If that big file was written to the root directory, it will be fairly close to the beginning of the partition. Then remove the big file. All the free space is now at the beginning of the partition. AS ALWAYS: BACKUP YOUR DISK BEFORE USING A PROGRAM LIKE RE-ORG!!!!! Disclaimer: This is my work-around of what Michtron's Tune-up! does. I do not have the money to buy it so I created my own method of doing the same thing. Greg Onufer exodus@uop.edu