@Deniil715

Quote:

Quote: I'll use the new PATA drive for paper weight. So your new drive is a PATA drive, and you still didn't try lowering the UDMA speed??! As I said, I got similar issues with my 160GB PATA disk as UDMA133. Have to set it to UDMA100 or lower to make it work.

I didn't know how to lower the speed. Plus I did not understand why it needed to be lowered. Could this be the source of my trouble?

Quote:

Get drive info for all drives on sii0680.device. Maybe you have another controller: idetool -l sii0680ide.device Set drive on unit 0 to UDMA100: idetool -x sii0680ide.device 0 69 (Edit: should be 69, not 'F'. 'F' is for U-Boot.)

Many moons ago I had been booting off serial, but one of the OS updates broke that and I had to return to the VIA. Later when my back-up PATA drive died I replaced it with an identical PATA drive. When I ran into this problem I returned that PATA drive I bought because I thought the drive was faulty. Then I found that the replacement PATA drive was doing the same thing. Both PATA drives are identical to the 7-8 year old PATA drive which died.

Quote:

http://www.titan.co.nz/amigaak/AA020874d.htm

Thanks, this looks like it has some good reading for me.

As I mentioned to Toaks earlier, I have a bunch of other obligations I've been ignoring. I'll get back in a few days.

_________________
Moxee
AmigaOne X1000
AmigaOne XE G4
I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

@Moxee

Quote:

Moxee wrote: @Mechanic Well, yes they are (DH5, DH6, DH7, DH8), but the old back-up drive is removed. I didn't think that would be a problem. Is it?

It was for me some years ago on a A4000. One drive was on the motherboard connector and the second on a 040 warp engine connector. I don't recall the problem exactly, but the cure was to name the partitions on the second drive something other than DHx.

Might be worth a shot.

@Toaks

Quote:

don't give up!.

Well, I didn't for about 8 days of devoting most of my waking hours to this. I gave in because everything else in my life was suffering. I just had some time now and tried your suggestions.

Quote:

here's a few things.. 1. try to make a partition on the first blocks of the hdd, make it less than 4GB, use SFS on it.

I've been doing this all along and making it 1GB. I just removed everything and started over again. I even went so far as to use an older slb, but for now I am starting over again and using the latest slb_v2 version 1.19.

When you say SFS I am presuming that you mean SFS0 since there is also SFS2.

Quote:

2. set buffer to around 1000 on it

I've earlier tried using the default of 600 and also using 1000. For now I am using 1000.

Quote:

3. remove all other partitions in mediatoolbox, make sure there's only 1 partition there.

OK, I've only got one partition of 1GB and SFS0.

Quote:

4. boot up with the CD again and quick format the partition (if found), i have had this problem before with SFS and JXF on some hardrives and the above helped me.

Since I want to use this drive as a back-up drive I don't need the CD. I used my boot drive of Update 4. That should not be a problem unless Update 4 has some issues.

Do I understand correctly that you are suggesting that I only make one partition at a time, reboot, format if found, then repeating this process throughout the whole drive one partition at a time?

Quote:

i would personally advise that you never use partitions bigger than 30GB.

I've been using a work partition of 40GB since ages, but can keep it at 30GB.

Quote:

Keep in mind that buffer size use a s**t load of memory so if you add 2000 buffers on every partition for 200 GB... well, i can safely say that most Amiga One users will not have enough memory for that in their machines.

Understood. I've only been using the default of 600 all this time for every partition up to this new hard drive when I tried both 600 and 1000.

Quote:

The workaround i used was that i set the buffers as low as possible on harddrives that didnt matter all that much and left it big at partitions like T: , SYS: and work:. i hope you will try these steps and let us know how it goes.

The set up, reboot, finding the partition, and quick formating it went fine. Now I'll reboot, then make another partition.

The 2nd partition shows up on the workbench normally as uninitialized, but I am sorry to say that the 2nd partition still will not format. The format window just sits there without any progress just like it has been doing all along.

Sigh...

I have to quit now and go down to help out at a car show at our city park.

_________________
Moxee
AmigaOne X1000
AmigaOne XE G4
I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

@Moxee

Quote:

I didn't know how to lower the speed. Plus I did not understand why it needed to be lowered. Could this be the source of my trouble?

I'm pretty sure I answred this already, maybe I never got to hit submit..?
Anyway, now you know how to set the speed.

Messing with all these buffer sizes and setting up one parition at a time is just nonsens if you ask me. I can't imagine there being any such bugs needing that kind of work-arounds. What you got is an electrical problem.

The reason it simply electrical. This interface (ATA/IDE) was never designed to carry data this fast so there had to be hacks to try to make it this fast, like 80-wire cables which has a lot more ground wires to shield off the increasing electrical noise. But it may still be right on the edge of the specs the controller and the drive can do, or in our case just outside specs.

As I mentioned, I can not use my 160GB UDAM133 drive at top speed. It will give the same symptoms you are seeing. Random errors and just won't work. In my case I had already formatted it in PIO mode which is way slower, so didn't see the format problem but got other problems. When I lowered the speed to UDMA100 all problems went away.

You say your old drive is the same model and size, but it must have been a different batch I presume, likely to use different components that changed the electrical characteristics of the new ones enough to be out of specs in relation to the controller.

_________________
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@Deniil715

It seems they did not need me at the car show so I returned home.

Quote:

So your new drive is a PATA drive, and you still didn't try lowering the UDMA speed??! As I said, I got similar issues with my 160GB PATA disk as UDMA133. Have to set it to UDMA100 or lower to make it work.

I guess I've tried everything else without success. I should try lowering the speed too. I still remember the original docs stressing to use Best PIO.

Quote:

Get drive info for all drives on sii0680.device. Maybe you have another controller: idetool -l sii0680ide.device

I have installed a SIL 3512.

Quote:

Set drive on unit 0 to UDMA100: idetool -x sii0680ide.device 0 69 (Edit: should be 69, not 'F'. 'F' is for U-Boot.) http://www.titan.co.nz/amigaak/AA020874d.htm

The problem drive is a PATA connected to the Onboard VIA. Not on the SIL3512. I'll need the command to change Unit 3 which is on the Secondary Bus. Is the following correct:
idetool -x a1ide.device 3 69

Or can I just lower the speed in UBoot?

All 4 VIA Units on the Primary and Secondary Bus are set to Best PIO now which includes my working boot-up partition on Unit 2. I don't think I should change Unit 0, 1, nor 2 since they are working fine now. Well, nothing is on Unit 2 at the present.
Primary
0 - CD drive
1- not used
Secondary
2- Boot drive
3- Problem drive

My SIL3512 has UDMA 6 set on both Primary and Secondary already.

_________________
Moxee
AmigaOne X1000
AmigaOne XE G4
I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

@Mechanic

Quote:

Quote: Well, yes they are (DH5, DH6, DH7, DH8), but the old back-up drive is removed. I didn't think that would be a problem. Is it? It was for me some years ago on a A4000. One drive was on the motherboard connector and the second on a 040 warp engine connector. I don't recall the problem exactly, but the cure was to name the partitions on the second drive something other than DHx. Might be worth a shot.

Thanks for the suggestion. Alas, this too did not cure the situation.

_________________
Moxee
AmigaOne X1000
AmigaOne XE G4
I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

@Deniil715

Quote:

Quote: I didn't know how to lower the speed. Plus I did not understand why it needed to be lowered. Could this be the source of my trouble? I'm pretty sure I answred this already, maybe I never got to hit submit..? Anyway, now you know how to set the speed.

You mentioned the command for changing the drive speed on the SIL card, but I am working with the VIA drives.

Quote:

Messing with all these buffer sizes and setting up one parition at a time is just nonsens if you ask me. I can't imagine there being any such bugs needing that kind of work-arounds.

That does seem extreme, but I am not educated on this subject.

Quote:

What you got is an electrical problem. The reason it simply electrical. This interface (ATA/IDE) was never designed to carry data this fast so there had to be hacks to try to make it this fast, like 80-wire cables which has a lot more ground wires to shield off the increasing electrical noise. But it may still be right on the edge of the specs the controller and the drive can do, or in our case just outside specs. As I mentioned, I can not use my 160GB UDAM133 drive at top speed. It will give the same symptoms you are seeing. Random errors and just won't work. In my case I had already formatted it in PIO mode which is way slower, so didn't see the format problem but got other problems. When I lowered the speed to UDMA100 all problems went away.

I don't understand this. If PIO is way slower, why would I need/want to change from that?

Quote:

You say your old drive is the same model and size, but it must have been a different batch I presume, likely to use different components that changed the electrical characteristics of the new ones enough to be out of specs in relation to the controller.

Yes, I understand that makes sense since there has been some time passing between the two drives.

Here is the spec sheet for the drive. The model number does not match up exactly, but they only make one 320GB PATA drive: http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-701277.pdf
Look on Page 2 in the far right column. Perhaps this will give an educated mind some information. It is all numbers to me.

Last edited by Moxee on 20-May-2012 at 11:46 PM.

_________________
Moxee
AmigaOne X1000
AmigaOne XE G4
I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

@Moxee

Have you got any way you can reformat or zero this drive under windows or Linux?

At least then you know that nothing else you've done is causing problems with the next thing you try.

_________________
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========================================
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AmigaOne and OS4.1
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Dell Mini 10 Netbook running IcAros and AmigaForever+Amikit+AmigaSys

@Moxee



Edit: just re read the thread.

What size hard drives drives are A1 users using ?
Could it be that there is an issue with large drives under OS 4.1 with A1's ?

Last edited by Spectre660 on 21-May-2012 at 12:45 AM.
Last edited by Spectre660 on 21-May-2012 at 12:44 AM.

_________________
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Maybe there is some sort of incompatibility between the newer (heavier)
drives and the older PSU's. The other way around could also be that older
drives have problems with the newer (heavier) PSU's.

Maybe it is a coincident, but recently i have blown up an older drive on
a recent PSU. One of our amigaclub-members said there are sometimes
troubles with the newer heavier PSU's and older drives.

Again, maybe it is a coincident, but now i have a new low-power PSU and
everything works fine now. So i stick with the older drives and low-power
PSU's.

_________________
A1G3-SE + OS4.1 u1 iso (x2)

@Moxee

Quote:

Moxee wrote: @Toaks [quote] When you say SFS I am presuming that you mean SFS0 since there is also SFS2.

You are correct, SFS0.

Quote:

I've earlier tried using the default of 600 and also using 1000. For now I am using 1000.

ok, as long as you have enough memory for it.


Quote:

OK, I've only got one partition of 1GB and SFS0.

thats a great start.

Quote:

Do I understand correctly that you are suggesting that I only make one partition at a time, reboot, format if found, then repeating this process throughout the whole drive one partition at a time?

yeah , that would be the best way to do it for now as its a big drive, not saying you must do it but its always best to start like that if you encounter problems

Quote:

I've been using a work partition of 40GB since ages, but can keep it at 30GB.

Yeah, i know others have much more than that but i was only giving you a personal recomendation based on years of being a tester of JXF and SFS among other filesystems for OS3.x and 4.x for Joerg and co.

Quote:

The set up, reboot, finding the partition, and quick formating it went fine. Now I'll reboot, then make another partition. The 2nd partition shows up on the workbench normally as uninitialized, but I am sorry to say that the 2nd partition still will not format. The format window just sits there without any progress just like it has been doing all along.

damn!, how odd is all this :( , i mean if you managed to do the 1GB partition and manage to get the other(s) partitions split and saved then formatting should go fine too unless it break some size barriers etc (which it obviously doesn't).

did you try to format the whole drive in another system? (macOS,windows,linux etc) just to make sure the drive is working? (my guess is that the drive is ok but it does something strange which is unsupported in AmigaOS).

i guess the drive would be a perfect item to send to testers/developers ;)


i am currently only using a 120 and 160 gb drives, and the 160 is not in use really as i have put all pictures/movies/music etc on a NAS drive so that all units (A1XE,SAM,Ipad,ipone,PSP,PS3,PSvita,android phones etc) in my house can reach the files via WIFI or normal ethernet cabling :)

Even better, the NAS has a bitTorrent client,mediaserver etc built in which i control with a normal browser like OWB,Timberwolf and Ibrowse2.

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@Moxee

Quote:

You mentioned the command for changing the drive speed on the SIL card, but I am working with the VIA drives.

It should be the same but with a1ide.device instead. The on-board VIA has a maximum speed of UDMA100 though.

Quote:

I don't understand this. If PIO is way slower, why would I need/want to change from that?

Are you running the drive in PIO mode now?? If so, it may very well not be a speed issue after all. But still worth testing different speeds since nothing else works..

Use "idetool -l a1ide.device" or "idetool -u a1ide.device 3" to find out.

_________________
>Amiga Classic and OS4 developer for OnyxSoft.
>A1-XE/G4, Radeon9250, Sweex 5.1, SII680
-Don't hesitate to contact me about my programs, but please use e-mail instead of PM. E-mails are more likely to be read in time, and easier for me to keep track of.

@OldAmigan

Quote:

Have you got any way you can reformat or zero this drive under windows or Linux?

I have a 3 year old PC with Vista on it. It is a nice machine, but I don't think there is a PATA connection on the MB, let alone a card with one. I loaned it out a couple of weeks ago to one of my sisters while hers is being repaired.

I have an old Pentium 3 XP machine somewhere in storage. Even an old Pentium 2 machine somewhere in storage. I am sure they are way in the back of a storage shed. Probably have to move Heaven and Earth to find them.

Quote:

At least then you know that nothing else you've done is causing problems with the next thing you try.

Do you mean if I can format the whole drive as one partition?

_________________
Moxee
AmigaOne X1000
AmigaOne XE G4
I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

@Spectre660

Quote:

What size hard drives drives are A1 users using ? Could it be that there is an issue with large drives under OS 4.1 with A1's ?

I wish other A1 owners would chime in here telling the size and manufacturer of the hard drives they are using on their VIA and Serial interfaces. XE and SE should not make a difference would it?

I used a 500GB Seagate on my SIL card originally. Then I went used two 320GB Western Digital on my SIl3512. One was the boot drive, but it stopped working some months ago so I disconnected them both and went back to using 2 PATA drives. When the backup PATA drive failed and I couldn't get the new PATA drive to format I started using the backup SATA drive again.

My PATA drives are...

Oh, I wonder if I just discovered what may be the source of my format trouble.

My working PATA boot drive is 80GB. Not the 320GB I remembered it to be. I must have gotten it mixed it up with the 320GB SATA drives I have.

So does the on board VIA have restriction on the size of a hard drive and the 320GB is too large?

_________________
Moxee
AmigaOne X1000
AmigaOne XE G4
I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

@Moxee

I think some drives need some space before the first partition. AmigaOS has to be able to read the entire partition from beginning to end or it can't validate it. I would try an experiment. Create one small partition, about 100 MB's. Start it on cylinder 100. The end cylinder is calculated by Media Toolbox and it doesn't matter much. Give it some name that hasn't been used, like TEST0:. Reboot. Open up a shell and type "info". All your partitions should show up. If TEST0: says "validating" and is stuck there, it's having trouble reading your drive.

_________________
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@Moxee

Gawd... aint you got this thing working yet...

I did suggest quite few posts back, the simplest way to find out if the drive is faulty is for someone with a similar sized drive that is known to be working and partitioned to email you a copy of their RDB, it's simple and easy to do (and in case anyone is worried about doing this, an RDB file doesn't give out any "private" or "personal" information or data from your hard disk)...

That way all you have to do us write the RDB file to the HD and if you cant use or format the partitions that the RDB sets up then the fault most likely is with the actual HD itself. I somehow don't think your HD is faulty as I believe this is the second one you've tried (you did take it back and change it didn't you)...

Somebody please send Moxee a copy of their RDB from a similar sized working HD please, as this must be the longest I've ever known it to take to solve what should be a quite simple problem...

_________________

@Toaks

Quote:

damn!, how odd is all this :( , i mean if you managed to do the 1GB partition and manage to get the other(s) partitions split and saved then formatting should go fine too unless it break some size barriers etc (which it obviously doesn't).

So, you don't think 320GB is too large a drive for the on board VIA?

Quote:

did you try to format the whole drive in another system? (macOS,windows,linux etc) just to make sure the drive is working?

I don't have another system with a PATA interface available right now. I have a Pentium 2 and a 3 in storage, but it will take some time to find them. They are way in the back and I am not so keen to remove everything to get to them. Then put everything back.

Quote:

(my guess is that the drive is ok but it does something strange which is unsupported in AmigaOS).

I think the drive is ok too.

Quote:

i guess the drive would be a perfect item to send to testers/developers ;)

If one was close by, I would.

Quote:

i am currently only using a 120 and 160 gb drives, and the 160 is not in use really as i have put all pictures/movies/music etc on a NAS drive so that all units (A1XE, SAM, Ipad, ipone, PSP, PS3, PSvita, android phones etc) in my house can reach the files via WIFI or normal ethernet cabling :) Even better, the NAS has a bitTorrent client, mediaserver etc built in which i control with a normal browser like OWB,Timberwolf and Ibrowse2.

That is more involved than I think I want to get at my age. Instead of learning, I am beginning to forget.

Are hard drive manufacturers not making small capacity PATA hard drives any longer? I cannot find them here locally. All I find are several hundred GB drives.

_________________
Moxee
AmigaOne X1000
AmigaOne XE G4
I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

@Deniil715

Quote:

Quote: I don't understand this. If PIO is way slower, why would I need/want to change from that? Are you running the drive in PIO mode now??

Yes, from day one.

Quote:

If so, it may very well not be a speed issue after all. But still worth testing different speeds since nothing else works.. Use "idetool -l a1ide.device" or "idetool -u a1ide.device 3" to find out.

Nothing is working so far. I am still wondering if the 320GB drive is too large.

_________________
Moxee
AmigaOne X1000
AmigaOne XE G4
I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

@thinkchip

Quote:

I think some drives need some space before the first partition. AmigaOS has to be able to read the entire partition from beginning to end or it can't validate it. I would try an experiment. Create one small partition, about 100 MB's. Start it on cylinder 100. The end cylinder is calculated by Media Toolbox and it doesn't matter much. Give it some name that hasn't been used, like TEST0:. Reboot. Open up a shell and type "info". All your partitions should show up. If TEST0: says "validating" and is stuck there, it's having trouble reading your drive.

I was just about to try your suggestion when I decided to try to format my 2nd partition once more.

WALLA !! It formatted !!

Now, I don't want to get excited and and believe the rest of the drive will partition and format, but this is progress.

Here are some things I did this morning:

1- I pulled out the RAM chip (again) so I could remove my PATA 80GB and 320GB drives. I also removed both of my SATA 320GB drives. I did this so I could register those 4 drives on the Western Digital web site. I should have registered them long ago since registering them brings help. Only two of the drives are still in warranty. Starting at the bottom of the A1 XE's case I had the drives installed this way: bottom 2 slots were the SATA 320GB drives. Slot 3 was empty. Slot 4 was the 320GB PATA drive. Slot 5 was the 80GB PATA drive. Slot 6 was empty. I replaced them the same way, but moved the top PATA 80GB drive up into Slot 6. This left the new 320GB PATA with an empty slot below and above it. I was thinking of air flow when I did this. I don't know if this was the solution, but the system formatted the 2nd partition this time instead of just stalling.

2- When I opened Media Toolbox and selected Edit Partitions and Filesystems I noticed that after my 1st 1GB partition and 2nd 30GB partition there was a 3rd partition which contained the whole remaining 289GB of the drive. I never made this partition. Where did it come from? I was not there on my other attempts. Anyway, I removed that 3rd partition and tried to format the failing 2nd partition. After so many failed attempts I was shocked with it formatted.

Do any of you more educated members have any idea which one of the above two changes might have fixed my problem. Or did both of them combined make it work?

Of course, I'd better try to format a 3rd 6GB partition before I'll claim success.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.....

WALLA !! My 3rd partition formatted !!

Is it possible I can lay this baby to rest now?

Of course this success happened after I just finished mail ordering an 80GB PATA drive identical to the 80GB PATA drive which crashed 2-3 weeks ago. I was resigned to use the problem 320GB PATA drive as a door stop.

_________________
Moxee
AmigaOne X1000
AmigaOne XE G4
I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

@Moxee

Sound like your partition table was corrupted a tiny bit.

Corruption might also happen when the wrong Ultra DMA mode is used.

Things like SDRAM that's not in its place and cables that not attached completely might make your system unstable and corrupt, also lack of power if you have many disks, power graphic card and so on.

This might happen your using a file system that's does support 64bit NSD io commands, or large partitions beyond 4gb, or file systems that don't support large files, and so on, it might also happen by freak accident, 4gb is the magic limit, some file systems only support 512 bytes block sizes, be careful using old filesystems from aminet.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 23-May-2012 at 11:43 PM.

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