I knew this had to happen, and it happened yesterday. My A4000 suddendly stopped to work: black screen, no response to mouse or CTRL-A-A, and the LED on my Linksys router showed the Amiga ethernet was down.
(Christmas was bad for me as 2 days before, another HDD failed on my Linux box. But I have now installed another Linux system on a spare partition (on a mostly unused disk) and recovered most of the lost settings/data.)

I already had some problems with one of the HDD in the Amiga which got "stuck" and refused to spin, and I solved this with several switch on - switch off. And to avoid having the HDD stuck again on cold boot, I let the computer to run 24/24 since the last 6 years or so. No other problem then... since yesterday.
Today, I tried the switch on -switch off trick again, but all I have succeeded to do is to burn the PSU fusible (I guess): the A4000 is no more powering up AT ALL.

Strange feeling, bad mood, anger, sadness, ... It's as if I suddenly lost a part of 20 years in my life (many installed applications, custom tweaks and own creations, about 15 years of mails, several passwords and keyfiles too, ... ...).

More then ever, I'm dying to get my hands on a X1000 and a Natami. Just waiting for them to be available.

But I wonder: Will I ever be able to recover the data from my HDD ?

I remember I read a comment here from someone else who also had a bad HDD crash, but he luckily got most if not all his files recovered by a specialist (not sure, but I think it was by Amiga Repair Center in France). I search on AmigaWorld.net, but did not find that message again.

Any advice ?

Sure, I should have made backups; but I was puzzled as to which support to use (excluding floppies , and no CDR burner available), which FS or compression, as to preserve the filenames, datestamps, comments and file attributes.

Note: A IDE disk was used just for the initial cold boot. Then warm boot was done from OS3.5 copied on a created RAD disk. But all the main data, including Workbench, was on a 2Gb SCSI (WarpEngine) HDD (FFS formatted); and I think this is the one which died.
Maybe something else is broken too ? I don't know for sure. It's not the CPU, as there was some activity on switch on. But the noise coming out the box was a bit different (THAT makes me think a disk was not spinning), and the LED for the IDE disk was flashing mad as in a endless loop.



Edit 29-jan-11: Nearly solved. Just need a new Amiga now (see here).

Last edited by AmigaPhil on 12-Feb-2011 at 07:52 PM.
Last edited by AmigaPhil on 29-Jan-2011 at 10:04 PM.

@AmigaPhil

Sad news :(

For the HDD recovery no problem!
If you get an OS4.x capable machine your HDD will be recognized and mounted so no problem if you would recover your data...
The only problem was that if you are waiting for X1000 maybe you have to wait some month before recover data...
However you can also mount your HDD on a linux box and recover the data from here, but was preferable to do it on a real amiga system since you may lose bit protections and or other thinga doing the work from an "alien" OS...

You can also use it on a MOS system to recover it...

So no prob att all to recover it...only sad to have the A4000 borken :(

_________________
Simone"Tuxedo"Monsignori, Perugia, ITALY.

I really don't see any reason to jump to any early conclusions about lost memories. On the contrary, nothing in your description suggests that any storage units have been fried. Although I really can't determine the cause of the problem, I'm pretty sure that the hard drives are in the same condition they were yesterday. Ergo, connect them to some other IDE-controller and the data itself will - hopefully - be fully recoverable.

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@Tuxedo

It's worst than that, because I think that my A4000 died BECAUSE of a HDD failure.
So special tools are probably needed to try to extract as much data as possible from it.


It could be something else as well...
I made the user-startup script to use the available partitions and fall back gracefully with just the IDE disk in case the partitions of the SCSI disk were not available. But the Amiga didn't boot. I have not had a chance to try to boot with a floppy disk, but even the right and left mouse buttons didn't bring the early startup screen.

@AmigaPhil

sorry but...
without the hdd the A4000 works fine?

If no...why hdd failure?

_________________
Simone"Tuxedo"Monsignori, Perugia, ITALY.

@Petah

Quote:

I really don't see any reason to jump to any early conclusions about lost memories. On the contrary, nothing in your description suggests that any storage units have been fried.

I suspect the problem might be caused by a HDD failure because:

• I already have had problems with HDD like:
  
  
  • booting with just a default Workbench and no other Work, Data, ... partitions (see my previous post). This happened once or twice, but a long time ago when I used to switch off the computer when not used.
  
  
  • From time to time (hopefully not very often), some OS error messages popping up like "Checksum error in block xxx - Retry - Cancel" (Clicking "Retry" sometimes up to hundred times and it then pass)


• Yesterday, the A4000 was a bit less noisy than usual,


• One of the 2 HD LED did not lid at all, the other lid strangelly.

@AmigaPhil

I am often scared how rude some people handle their hardware and how naive they work around early indications of failure.

- if a hard drive fails once, do not rely on it in a 7*24 manner but rather backup the data and replace the drive ASAP

- never quickly switch off/on an electronic device. Never.

Well, now

- disconnect the device of which you think that it caused the failure and check if the rest of the machine still powers on.

- if it doesn't, measure the voltage of the power supply.

- if the power supply failed, replace it

- if the power supply is ok, disconnect everything from the machine except motherboard, doughterboard, mouse, keyboard and monitor. Try to power it up. If it doesn't run, send it to somebody who can repair it.

- if it runs without any periphery, then connect one device after the other until you find the one which caused the failure.

As for the data recovery,

- if you don't trust the Amiga, connect the drive to another computer, preferredly a PC.

- if the drive does not spin when powered up, then you are out of options. You can try to find a recovery laboratory. They usually recover some data for a few hundred Euros or Dollars or whatever you use to pay where you live. With a bit of luck you find one who knows and likes Amiga and who does not demand extra payment for alien (i.e. non-PC) file systems. Note that you only need an image of the drive. There are enough recovery tools out there which allow you to do partition and file recovery yourself.

- if the drive spins up and is recognised by the computer, make an image of it and only work on the image. WinUAE for example can handle Amiga drives and/or images of them very well. It even runs on Linux through WINE.

_________________
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@Tuxedo

Quote:

without the hdd the A4000 works fine? If no...why hdd failure?

On my Linux machine, the broken HDD did show in the BIOS - SCSI section, but when the OS tried to load, none of its partitions were found.

I guess it's about the same on Amiga. An installed but malfunctioning HDD might make the motherboard fail to boot.
I haven't tried to remove the HDDs (are there also jumpers to change ?) and see if it boot with a floppy. (Can't try that now, unfortunately.)

@AmigaPhil

Why dont simply try to disconnect HDD and power on the A4000?

It have to ask you for the floppy if dont found any bootable device with the standard Kickstart 3.0/3.1 animation...

Nothing complex, simply disconnect the hard drive and see what happens...

_________________
Simone"Tuxedo"Monsignori, Perugia, ITALY.

@AmigaPhil

hi phil have you got commordore cpu board if so try with the power of reseasting that carefully
that can cause the machine not to boot did on my 4000, it chould be just psu needs replacing so dont give up just yet .

_________________
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amiga 2000

Quote:

it chould be just psu needs replacing so dont give up just yet .

that's the really much probable cause...

_________________
Simone"Tuxedo"Monsignori, Perugia, ITALY.

@AmigaPhil

If the HDD still is readable, you can use Linux to copy it, at least FFS is supported.

Gnu ddrescue should be able to do the rescue.

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@AmigaPhil

And if you manage to get it powered up you should see the power LED change to indicate it's alive. And also a grey out of the RGB is a good sign. Don't forget without a HD in the IDE port there's the 30 second delay before booting.

But here's the part I really don't understand:
Quote:

I let the computer to run 24/24 since the last 6 years or so

Your Amiga has been running for the past 6 years non-stop!?

How could you do this? Never updated or upgraded your Amiga in six years? Since I had an A4000 it hasn't been finished once! Always something happening to it.

But I can see how hard it is for backups when you are't backing to another Amiga. If archiving it's good to clone all dates, compression slows it down but good if you want to transfer it to another machine. I have lots of stuff on floppies. From my A500. On my A4000 I sometimes FTP data to my A1 over the local. But the best I find is using CDR.

How come you never got a CDRecordable drive, either external SCSI for the Warp or intenral IDE for the A4000? Whem my A1200 was my main machine I found this indispensable. Couldn't live without it!

@Amigaphil

Remove all inside and see if the A4000 run.

if not, check your PSU.

if yes, add one compoment by one untill the A4000 won't boot.

Also, If running during six years, that mean lots of cleaning to do inside !!


You must do backups from time to time (on another HD for example) and must do something when HD start to send errors messages.

Last edited by Mrodfr on 27-Dec-2010 at 06:57 AM.

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@thomas

Quote:

I am often scared how rude some people handle their hardware and how naive they work around early indications of failure.

I used to be very careful when using my Amiga. It started to change a bit after the fall of Commodore. We all know that, slowly but surely, the Amiga support was shrinking down. Over the time, less software and hardware devices/components were available. I knew that at some point, I would have to find an alternative/replacement for my A4000.

For me, it started with the Cyberstorm PPC board. I suspect it didn't like crunching RC5-64 for Dnetc. I sent the board in France (Phase 5 was already bankrupted) to someone who proposed to send a batch of boards to a company in Germany (don't remind the name, I think it was DCE); but in the end, my board never got repaired. I bought back a WarpEngine I sold when I purchased the CS-PPC...
The motherboard battery also went down. I bought a replacement one from AmigaKit, but was not able to replace it myself (no tool and not at ease with soldering). Hopefully, the motherboard is vertical in a tower, with the battery at the bottom.
Later, my Microvitec monitor also died. With a KVM switch, I share the Targa monitor used on my Linux system. But I had to forget about many applications/games that need Amiga native screens not supported by the monitor (even the ADPro palette editor is not working right if not opened on a real AGA screen).

That is to say, as the time passed, the less were the chances to be able and afford to rejuvenate an aging Amiga. The more realistic solution was to replace it; and in the meantime a replacement is found, it has to survive as long as possible.

Quote:

- if a hard drive fails once, do not rely on it in a 7*24 manner but rather backup the data and replace the drive ASAP

I agree, that was stupid.
The problem I was faced is with backup: What is the best and safer way to move around 2 Gb of Amiga files from one system to another ?

I once tried to prepare a dedicated Amiga partition on my Linux system, but couldn't find how to format it. I was told that there is no Linux tool for doing that, Linux is just able to access already formatted disk. (Later, someone even told me that FFS is no more supported by the Linux kernel (?) ) So I formatted it in FAT32 as to be able to access it from Linux, Windows or Amiga (emulator).
Problem is another FS would not have allowed to preserved all the Amiga file attributes. Even copying files over ethernet with FTP would have altered the files (because the FTP deamon on Linux would have change the attributes on the way).

Well for me, to not loose anything, the best way to migrate Amiga files was from an Amiga to an Amiga.
So I waited, fingers crossed, for the A4000 to stay alive until I got a replacement.
(And yes, I should not have waited that long and bought a SAM )

Quote:

- never quickly switch off/on an electronic device. Never.

Sure, that was also stupid.
This was a panic reaction meaning: "Wake up ! Please, wake up ! Don't leave me now !"

First time I did this, I normally switched off then on, with a reasonable delay in between. And the small electrical choc when powering up the machine was enough to kick the HDD and make it start to spin.

Last time I tried that, I lost patience.


Quote:

- if the drive does not spin when powered up, then you are out of options. You can try to find a recovery laboratory. They usually recover some data for a few hundred Euros or Dollars or whatever you use to pay where you live. With a bit of luck you find one who knows and likes Amiga and who does not demand extra payment for alien (i.e. non-PC) file systems.

I've not yet started to disconnect and dismount, but I fear the main HDD has a hardware failure.

There are many companies around the world specialized in disk repair/data recovery, I would like the advice from someone who knows such a company which can deal with Amiga/FFS.
As I wrote, I think I read here a comment about such situation. The poster was very happy because he recovered all his files. I don't find this message again, and I don't know who is the savior guy/company.

Quote:

Note that you only need an image of the drive. There are enough recovery tools out there which allow you to do partition and file recovery yourself.

Is such image standard ? I mean, would a repair company be able to send me back one big file with all the disk content I can then mount on another Amiga ?

Quote:

- if the drive spins up and is recognised by the computer, make an image of it and only work on the image. WinUAE for example can handle Amiga drives and/or images of them very well. It even runs on Linux through WINE.

Nice to learn, thanks.


@Tuxedo
Quote:

Why dont simply try to disconnect HDD and power on the A4000?

Yes, I have to try that, but can't do it right now because I (think I) also killed the PSU with the "switch on/off". So I need to repair that first.


@actungbaby44
Quote:

hi phil have you got commordore cpu board if so try with the power of reseasting that carefully that can cause the machine not to boot did on my 4000.

No, it's not the original Commodore CPU board, but a WarpEngine. But yes, if the 68040 was dead, I wouldn't have had any signs of activity at all (which I had before I killed the PSU trying to "wake up" the system).


@tomazkid
Quote:

If the HDD still is readable, you can use Linux to copy it, at least FFS is supported.

Really ? I thought the FFS support was dropped (so I was told). (I use OpenSUSE 11.3)

Quote:

Gnu ddrescue should be able to do the rescue.

Noted. Thanks.


@Hypex
Quote:

Your Amiga has been running for the past 6 years non-stop!?

Yes. I'm also very impressed by how good the Amiga hardware is, even in comparison with modern Wintel based machines.

Quote:

How could you do this? Never updated or upgraded your Amiga in six years? Since I had an A4000 it hasn't been finished once! Always something happening to it.

No hardware changes since.
I have 2 machines in a LAN; what I can't do/access from the Amiga, I do it from the Linux box.

Of course, I had to re-boot the Amiga from time to time (memory trashed, software crash, ...), but doing a warm re-boot (CTRL-A-A) from the RAD disk was enough to restart a clean and stable system.

Quote:

How come you never got a CDRecordable drive

Never had a real need for it, except when software are distributed on ISO. But even then, ISO files can be mounted...


@Mrodfr
Quote:

You must do backups from time to time (on another HD for example) and must do something when HD start to send errors messages.

Sure !

Last edited by AmigaPhil on 27-Dec-2010 at 10:13 PM.

@AmigaPhil

Quote:

There are many companies around the world specialized in disk repair/data recovery, I would like the advice from someone who knows such a company which can deal with Amiga/FFS.

Perhaps you can ask the guy of this post: http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=711086&postcount=10


Quote:

Is such image standard ? I mean, would a repair company be able to send me back one big file with all the disk content I can then mount on another Amiga ?

I don't know how experts call such an image file. I would call it RAW.

You might ask for a VHD file. This kind of file is used by Microsoft Virtual PC and similar virtualisation softwares. WinUAE can deal with these files, too and Windows 7 can mount them like real hard drives.


Quote:

Quote: Your Amiga has been running for the past 6 years non-stop!? Yes. I'm also very impressed by how good the Amiga hardware is, even in comparison with modern Wintel based machines.

It's not as impressive as it seems. Regular power up and later shut down causes more stress to the hardware than continuous up time, not least because of temperature differences.

It can well be that your power supply died now just because you switched it off after years of flawless work.

_________________
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@AmigaPhil

Finally, your A4000 run fine, without the HDD you focused to be the faultly compoment ?

_________________
BTW, what you have done for the amiga today ????

-A1200+Mediator+VooDoo3+060/50+96mo+SCSI-KIT
-SAM440EP-667mhz-on MapowerKC3000+AOS4.1

Amiga Docs Disks Preservation Project

@amigaphil

If your Amiga is towered, get yourself an ATX powersupply from a PC and rewire it: information here: http://www.ianstedman.co.uk/Amiga/amiga_hacks/Amiga_Power_supplies/body_amiga_power_supplies.html#Fitting_a_new_PSU_to_an_A4000

If your Amiga powers up, get yourself a working HD and install workbench on it... if it doesn't somethings wrong with the motherboard.

After that: put your old drive in there, if it's connected to the internal IDE: put it as a slave after the new HD and see what happens.

If your lucky it just shows up on the workbench of your freshly installed workbench BUT i think you have to make sure your new hardrive's partitions has other drivenames compared to your old drive. SO if the old partitions has the names DH0 and DH1, you might want to give your new partitions other names HD0 HD1 ...

Furthermore: Phil ...
- there are so many options to keep that A4000 in shape these days. Amiga Repair Center can and does do all the needed repairs to your motherboard, PPC card ...
-There is a Belgian Amigaclub with people that love to help fellow amigans in our little country. I see your monitor died... I had several of these multiscans that I almost gave away ( long live the scandoubler )....

Last edited by Aminicle on 28-Dec-2010 at 08:17 AM.

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@AmigaPhil

When doing your attempts do not write to the disk or you can do more damages.

The french company is Chronodisk. They can recover virtually any data on any filesystem (this includes Amiga filesystems).
The website is in french only I believe. But click on the middle of the page and you'll find an email link.

_________________
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@AmigaPhil

The PSU probably had some capacitors go bad when you switched it off after such a long time. It's the same as having it switched off for years and then switch it on and keep it on without softening the capacitors first with a few power cycles. HDDs also tend to crash if they have been spinning for years and then switched off.

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