dm@stekt2.oulu.fi (Hannu Helminen ti) (02/18/91)
I have an A500 (Kickstart 1.3) and A590. My 20-meg hard disk got full
and I bought a Quantum 210 S. I set it up and it worked well... for a
while. Then one day, it would not boot! The green drive led flashed
and flashed for a couple of minutes, then appeared a hand asking me to
insert the Workbench diskette :(
I tried re-formatting and re-prepping and re-everything, but nothing
seemed to help. All I got was mysterious error messages ("Error 19 on
device open" "Please check your hardware and try again"). HDToolBox
hanged trying to check scsi address 0.
All in all, it seemed my drive was not responding to anything.
Then a person wiser than me suggested that it might be a problem with
RigidDiskBlocks, FileSystemBlocks etc. that are stored on the disk. So I
disabled autobooting and mounted the system using BindDrivers. And it
indeed helped! The disk seemed OK. I rewrote the FileSystem and
enabled autobooting and it worked like a dream.
For a while.
You may guess the rest. A few days ago, it again refused to boot. Same
symptoms... execpt! BindDrivers wont help this time!
So, I am asking this:
Is it really possible that if something goes wrong in the disk (RDB,
for instance), A590 will not let me to destroy it, and rebuild the
system from the scratch!?!
Is there anything I can do? (Except formatting the drive with another,
smarter computer, so that there surely wont be any information that
would confuse A590)
Is there any way I could program the A590 myself, destroying those
blocks by hand? (Or do I have to use a huge magnet :) ?)
Needless to say, any help would be greatly appreciated.
-dm
--
_| _ _ Hannu dm@stekt.oulu.fi // Does anybody else in here
(_|| | ) Helminen dm@otitsun.oulu.fi \X/ feel the way I do?jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) (02/20/91)
In article <DM.91Feb18002913@stekt2.oulu.fi> dm@stekt2.oulu.fi (Hannu Helminen ti) writes: >while. Then one day, it would not boot! The green drive led flashed >and flashed for a couple of minutes, then appeared a hand asking me to >insert the Workbench diskette :( This implies the drive refused to become ready (perhaps it wouldn't spin up). >Then a person wiser than me suggested that it might be a problem with >RigidDiskBlocks, FileSystemBlocks etc. that are stored on the disk. So I >disabled autobooting and mounted the system using BindDrivers. And it >indeed helped! The disk seemed OK. I rewrote the FileSystem and >enabled autobooting and it worked like a dream. >You may guess the rest. A few days ago, it again refused to boot. Same >symptoms... execpt! BindDrivers wont help this time! >Is it really possible that if something goes wrong in the disk (RDB, >for instance), A590 will not let me to destroy it, and rebuild the >system from the scratch!?! Not really. RDB's don't just "go bad" for no reason. Also, all that happens when you run binddrivers is that the driver starts and goes out and read the rigid disk block. ALso, rigid disk blocks won't cause problems with opening devices. >Is there anything I can do? (Except formatting the drive with another, >smarter computer, so that there surely wont be any information that >would confuse A590) I would advise trying the drive on another machine, or trying a different A590 on your machine. I suspect the drive is bad (or, less likely, the cable is bad). I assume the drive has terminating resistors and is at the end of the cable. -- Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering. {uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com BIX: rjesup The compiler runs Like a swift-flowing river I wait in silence. (From "The Zen of Programming") ;-)