Subject: Re: Need help - lost access to my NetBSD partitions
To: None <port-amiga@netbsd.org>
From: Richard E. Crislip <rcrislip@neo.rr.com>
List: port-amiga
Date: 01/31/2002 19:11:06
Hello Lars
Is it possible your HD packed it in. I've had HDs die and they act strange
while they are doing it.
On 30-Jan-02, Lars Hecking wrote:
> Gunther Nikl writes:
>> On Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 02:22:48PM +0000, Lars Hecking wrote:
>>
>> A3000 with CS MkIII, Quantum Viking II 4.5GB at SCSI id 8; Kick ROM 3.1
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> Stupid question (I am not a SCSI expert): Is this a wide harddisk?
>
> Yep. ISTR reading somewhere (maybe even the CSMkIII docs :) that it's a
> good idea to use the upper 8 ids for UW disks if you have UW devices and
> narrow/wide devices on the same bus. Which I have (one SCSI2 disk on the
> other leg of the controller).
>
>> I guess using "scsiconfig" was the mistake. Which program did you use
>> initially to partition the disk?
>
> Yeah, I figured that :) I probably used HDToolBox, and switched
> SCSI ids later.
>
>> > After that, I couldn't boot NetBSD anymore from the bootblock, it
>> > looks
>> > like scsiconfig has f!cked up the RDB.
>>
>> This seems to indicate that you used a different tool to setup the disk
>> in the first place...
>
> That is clear, but why should that make a difference? I thought that
> RDB is standard?
>
>> Can't you use HDToolBox to restore the RDB? I guess using the FORCE
>> option of rdbread won't do any harm. You will only loose your new
>> scratch partition. Hopefully, you haven't written anything to disk
>> after you played with "scsiconfig".
>
> Nope.
>
> HDToolbox doesn't have (direct) RDB operations. I didn't use it because
> when I tried to read the disk geometry with it, it gives me completely
> and
> obviously bogus values.
>
>> > a newer version of FFS, and then proceeded with instructions how to
>> > create
>> > a patched FFS version 44.4 from the one on the WB3.1 Install disk.
>>
>> You do only need this if you want to use FFS on a partition beyound or
>> crossing the 4GB limit.
>
> Currently not the case, even with that new scratch partition.
>
>> > Important question: how do I get my software to recognise the proper
>> > disk
>> > geometry again? If a low-level format is required, so be it
>>
>> The problem is that SCSIConfig has a different opinion than other tools
>> used to partition a disk. I think if you create partitions with
>> SCSIConfig
>> and then format these with the AmigaOS format command, everything will
>> work under AmigaOS. You will quite likely still have problems with
>> NetBSD.
>> However, I always thought that the warnings from the NetBSD amigaos FFS
>> code are harmless...
>
> Right. It looks like I will have to go the HDToolBox route, even if it
> means loss of all data. Maybe rdbread FORCE first ...
>
> Thanks! Much appreciated!
>
Regards
--
Cruisen _|_
on AutoPilot with an Amiga ---o-( )-o--- and a CoCo
Richard