WHDLoad installer ate my DH0

[meduseld]

Ok, this is really peculiar and quite scary...

I was working on the pc, copying files that I will use on my amiga; and while I was at it, I decided to install WHDload.

Got the archive, decompress it and ran the installer on WinUAE. All right, no problems. Quit it, remove the CF card and put it back in the Amiga.

Boot....poof! The DH0 partition disappeared (I get the error message at boot, saying that there is no partition. I blame the late hour and just have a snort of derision toward the Amiga :nuts:

I put install disk, and check what is going on....well, I see 3 out of 5 partitions now. One is totally gone (luckilly not the one with the games; just the one with 600 Mb of mods, easy to fix, and with it, also all the apps that I copied few hours ago, but not that much); while DH0 shows up with a garbaged name, and all attempts to open it or get info results in a nice flash on the screen :double

What happened? I mean...is so bad to use WinUAE once you format your CF card with a real amiga? I just wasted a couple of hours, plus the whole OS install (which is easy to fix, I just use classicWB and I'm done, altho will take me another hour or so), but I am worried that from now on I could loose at random system and partitions, where I have saved data!

Is this a known issue? Everything was just fine; all that I did was to boot from the CF in WinUAE, copy files, run an installer for WHDLoad and restart...that's all that I did.

Any suggestion would be more than welcome; I am really not sure what is going on here...faulty CF? crappy CF reader? PC and Mac Gods are angry at me because I want to go back to Amiga?

 

[-Acid-]

What you described is not an issue with WinUAE I use it on Amiga formatted cards and hard drives all the time and have done for years with no data or partition loss. Something else has gone wrong in your case, sounds like the partition has been corrupted somehow and is ndos now.

 

[roy_bates]

it will all depend on how you setup the drive what filesystem you used most of the time.

 

[meduseld]

Ok, the drive was set up from scratch on the 1200 (my first attempt was made on WinUAE, and when I put it in the Amiga, it won't recognize it, so I just formatted it from scratch on the real amiga).

It is a 8Gb CF card from Sandisk; formatted with the standard file system used on 3.0 Kickstart and Install 3.0. I changed the data transfer settings to 0X0001FE00, since I was told that the file system may cause problems to the drive that are too big.

The card is partitioned as DF0: 550Mb, then 2 partition of 1.9 Gb and 2 partition with whatever was left; I divided it in 2 similar partition.
No partition is 2Gb or greater, and the first boot partition is small enough to fit the OS, but has plenty of space.

Was working fine, I transfer it back and forth between UAE and the Amiga a couple of times; but today was when it got corrupted. And I really don't get how and why.

 

[Turranius]

Sounds like you used the default FFS file system and it wrote over the 4gb barrier, causing it to write over the start of the disk again. You should use another file system.

Check this post. Specifically the link from Toni and my quick guide to PFS3-AIO. A good fileystem and a newer scsi.device (preferebly. not a must in your case according to the link, but it cant hurt) is what you need to go over 4GB.

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=69277

PFS3-AIO is a great filesystem. ClassicWB has newer scsi.devices coming with it.

 

[Sardine]

Sounds like you used the default FFS file system and it wrote over the 4gb barrier, causing it to write over the start of the disk again. You should use another file system.

Check this post. Specifically the link from Toni and my quick guide to PFS3-AIO. A good fileystem and a newer scsi.device (preferebly. not a must in your case according to the link, but it cant hurt) is what you need to go over 4GB.

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=69277

PFS3-AIO is a great filesystem. ClassicWB has newer scsi.devices coming with it.

if your CF is no larger than 8gb then I suggest SFS the specially pached 8gb version which does NOT require a new scsi.device, so no double booting or setpatch required.

I use this as it only eats 200-300k ram depending on your buffers and how many partitions you use. good for an amiga 1200 with only 4mb fast ram.

 

[demolition]

PFS3-AIO will also support up to 8GB cards with the standard scsi.device, and it will never 'wrap' around and destroy the file system even if configured incorrectly (it won't mount the drive then).

 

[meduseld]

I see, so the issue of wrapping around the drive happens no matter what, even if I make a partition which is under 2GB? I thought that the problem was only the single partition, and not the size of the drive...at this point the 8Gb CF was just a waste; could've got 2 4GB instead.

I will check the video, thanks for your suggestions. BTW 3.5 or 3.9 WB are able to get over the problem natively, or do I still need to install a different FS? I am asking since I've replaced the roms and now I can install 3.9 (got the CD, so I can upgrade from 3.0 to 3.9); but if it doesn't change much I will just stick with classicWB.

 

[-Acid-]

It's not difficult to install a new file system. It's literally a 30 second job in hdtoolbox you can do it while you are making the partitions. It's also recommended as then your drive will always be valid even if you crash will it's being written to etc.

 

[rkauer]

OS3.5 & 3.9 have an uprated file system that supports drives up to 128Gb with no fuss.

Prefer to install the system partition first (350Mb is more than sufficient for this), then install the OS and only when you see the updated OS running you can call the new HDToolbox to make the other partitions.

 

[merlinkv]

I have some Amigas working fine with Boot partitions of 1GB with FFS (the latest version) and the other partitions with SFS 1.279. Max transfer is the "standard" one 0X0001FE00.

The only difference is in the sectors size. In my FFS Boot partitions is set to 1024 bytes, in SFS is set to 512 bytes.

If I change the sector size of the FFS partitions to 512 I get read/write errors, partition not recognized, ......

All CF's I use (16 & 32Gb) are formatted under real Amigas with OS 3.9 BBx with latest updates and also works great in WinUAE.

I hope this help

 

[meduseld]

Ok, so if I understand correctly, I need to change the FS on the CF card that I have. Which I assume means to

-create a partition for the OS on the amiga
-install classicWB, and 3.9 on top of it via WinUAE
-update the FS to SFS or PFS3-AIO
-make the new partitions with that FS

Now the question is: my DH0 at this point will still be formatted as FFS?

I see a bunch of files in the classicwb, related to the bigger FS, but I don't get why they don't use it by default.

Sorry if I missed some steps...all of this is basically new to me; in the old days of 3.1 I never had the need to replace the FS

 

[merlinkv]

As I said I have all my Boot partitions are FFS, 1024 sector size, max transfer 0X0001FE00 and working

Of course is not the fastest FileSystem, but is the most compatible.

About PFS3..... Sorry but I don't have PFS3 installed on my systems and I cannot help you on this way

 

[meduseld]

As I said I have all my Boot partitions are FFS, 1024 sector size, max transfer 0X0001FE00 and working

Of course is not the fastest FileSystem, but is the most compatible.

About PFS3..... Sorry but I don't have PFS3 installed on my systems and I cannot help you on this way

Got it, but where did you got it? From 3.9? Or the standard 3.0 and you just changed the settings for the drive in HDToolbox?

I don't mind about fastest; I will mainly play on the amiga and probably write code, and listen to mods I need something that I can take back and forth between pc and Amiga, without getting the boot or other partitions wiped at random

I am quite confused about all these FS; gotta start all over reading all the various pages that I read until now

I am curious to see what are the settings for the Amikit cf cards; got one recently and I didn't tried it yet....altho that's a 4 Gb, not 8

 

[merlinkv]

You can get the FFS from any WB 3.x or you can download the last one from http://lilliput.amiga-projects.net/ROM_modules.htm

- Configure your drive/partition as usual, with HDToolBox and your desired FFS version

- If the FFS you want to use is different of the included in WB or Kickstart, you must copy the new FastFileSystem file to your L folder