[comp.sys.apple2] HARDDISK BLUE

ISSLTC@NUSVM.BITNET (Lim Thye Chean) (06/06/91)

Finally, my harddisk crashed. Ok, this is my first harddisk, just bought
it in less than a month, and have no bad block in 38 MB (8 MB and 30
MB partitions). The harddisk have no problems surviving 4 optimizations
using ProSel (each partitions twice), and it have never given me any
strange behaviours.

This is how it happened. I have loaded so much things into the harddisk
that my first partition have only 1 MB left and 600K in second partition.
I download Bouncing Blaster yesterday, put it into FIRST partition, and
unbinscilled it using the normal 8-bit softwares found on some sites.
The result is again stored in FIRST partition. I reboot, Start.GS.OS
not found.

So I boot up from 3.5", and found that my FIRST partition have 0 byte
left. So obviously the BinScill program just simply overwrite my
harddisk. I fix the first partition using ProSel, and found that after
fixing, 7 system files (including Font folder) was gone, and a file
(the converted SHK file of Bouncing Blaster) cannot be fix. Then I
use BitMap fixer I got from my friend to try it, everything works fine!
The 7 files was gone forever, so I simply copy them back from 3.5".

THEN THE REAL PROBLEM BEGINS...

My SECOND partitioned suddently go mad. 15 MB of game folder suddenly
shows 0 file. Demo folder is 0 file. AppleWorks GS gone. Use ProSel,
it refuses to fix all the errors (directory file cannot be fixed... skip).
Use BitMap fixer just told me Bad File Type and quit. I use ProSel
Main Directory fix, and follow every instructions my ProSel-using friends
told me, and the second partition was bad.

I save as much softwares as I can on the second partition, and after
trying for 3 hours, I gave up and erase the disk. It still didn't work.
Finder refuse to create a new folder for me. I initialize it, then
everythings work fine later. No bad blocks, and this time I left myself
9 MB free.

I still don't understand what have happened to me. Why all my works are
done in FIRST partition, and that partition can be easily fixed, and
my SECOND partition goes mad? Is there a good program that can fixed my
problems? Can anybody second-guess what have happened to me?


Thanks. By the way, if you have read up to this point and happen to
have a harddisk parking utility, mail me please. Or you know where I
can find such a utility. Even ProSel does not park the disk from me,
I have set parking after shutdown on.


***********************************************************************
                      *** Apple IIGS Forever ***

 An Apple IIGS lover from Malaysia. A software engineer from Singapore.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
                      Contact me at ISSLTC@NUSVM

       Lim Thye Chean - Lim is my surname. My name is Thye Chean.
***********************************************************************

joseph@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Seymour Joseph) (06/08/91)

Binscii did the same thing to my hard disk.  If you unpack a file to
an almost full first partition, it just overwrites the partition map
andkeeps going rather than reporting a disk full error as it should.
I had to repartition the disk and restore the thing from backups.  

Beware of BINCII on almost full partitions!

Seymour

whitewolf@gnh-starport.cts.com (Tae Song) (06/09/91)

|Finally, my harddisk crashed. Ok, this is my first harddisk, just bought
|it in less than a month, and have no bad block in 38 MB (8 MB and 30
|MB partitions). The harddisk have no problems surviving 4 optimizations
|using ProSel (each partitions twice), and it have never given me any
|strange behaviours.

Your problem sounds extremely fimilar.  I can't say for sure, but I'm 99% sure
you have a problem I had incountered recently.

My problem... I borrowed a friends HD, because it was having problems booting
and I hooked it up to my setup.  Anysways, after checking the HD out, I
figured out that the partition were incorrectly setup... the second partition
had more blocks availible than was actually available... this confuses the
SCSI controller and the HD... the HD was pretty screwed.  I manage to salvage
some of the files, then I repartitioned it and it worked fine.

I used RamFASTs utilities to repartition it, but if you don't have one, use
the Advanced Disk Utilities on the System.Tools disk.  I don't know what
program he used to partition the HD, but it was not done correctly.

You might have a virus for all I know, but I'm pretty sure this will solve
your problems.  BTW, use the latest ADU... it is v1.1 or higher, I think.

Tell me if this solves your problem.
  
INET: whitewolf@gnh-starport.cts.com
UUCP: crash!gnh-starport!whitewolf
ARPA: crash!gnh-starport!whitewolf@nosc.mil