From fnaumann@mail.cs.uni-magdeburg.de Sat Aug 7 06:57:59 2004 Subject: Re: [MiNT] 1.16.0 still no go From: Mark Duckworth To: mint@fishpool.com In-Reply-To: References: Content-Type: text/plain Message-Id: <1091854356.6920.10.camel@pikachu.atari-source.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.4.6 Date: Sat, 07 Aug 2004 00:52:36 -0400 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Delivered-To: mint@fishpool.com Delivered-To: mint@lists.fishpool.fi X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: mint-bounce@lists.fishpool.fi Errors-to: mint-bounce@lists.fishpool.fi X-original-sender: mduckworth@atari-source.com Precedence: bulk List-help: List-unsubscribe: List-ID: X-List-ID: X-Milter: ClamAV 0.70/0.70kjel X-Milter: milter-regex 1.5jel X-Milter: ClamAV 0.70/0.70kjel X-Milter: milter-regex 1.5jel On Sat, 2004-08-07 at 00:14, Jim DeClercq wrote: > Now that I had my drive back, comes the problem of putting the files back > on it, using, of course, mint with single tos, to load the files needed > for multitasking. > > I had made CD backups of my mint drive, because while I have worn out two > data tapes, at about 50USD, I have never worn out a CD. But, that did not > work. If one writes to a mint drive often enough, one will eventually see > a screen warning that a bit has already been cleared for something, which > means that the file system is now dead, and you can start over. That is a > small bug in Mint that badly needs squashing. > You mean RWABS Fail? I've never seen such a message. I certainly write to my ext2 drives a lot. I have 1 8 gig SCSI HDD that backs up all my other filesystems, both vfat and ext2. > I did have a tape backup, and that worked, and I am back in business > again. > That's definitely good. > The fact that CDs could not be used for backup was a disappointment to me, > since those can be had for 29 cents US, and do not wear out. > Hrmm. Again this is something I've not heard of. I would think Anodyne software would be more vocal about a problem like this. > This sort of thing, either bugs in MiNT, or merely that I run some > programs that get stuck, such as Gemvelope, are why I am not very > enthusiastic about compiling things. If I start, and I have started, > something will go wrong and I will lose what I started. > Understandable. Problems of this nature are why I am only getting into development now. When I first started out on Atari I routinely lost all of my data. > So, will somebody please look at those kernel files on the Sparemint site? > I think there are some problems there. Well, I don't know much about everything else, but those files on the sparemint site are obviously not corrupt. If you drive got so messed up that nothing would touch it except install.prg from ICD then it's likely you have a legitimately crashed HDD... it happens. See, even if the OS completely screwed up, the defect list a completely hardware (scsi protocol) driven thing from my understanding that the OS has NOTHING to do with. In other words if you have scsi verify on, the os will try to write say a block of data to x area. It writes the data and read verifies it. If the data comes back wrong, it internally adds this block to the defect list and uses some spare blocks at the end of the disk instead. The drive handles this internally, but I think this is all controllable during a format process. I could be really wrong here, but this sounds like a serious hardware issue. I've had problems like this with my old Mega ST2, which BTW ended up in the garbage can. The only thing left from it is the ICD Link2, both scsi hdd and computer are gone because they did crap like you described every other week. Now I have 2 TT's, a Falcon, 2 Mega STe's and a 1040 and I don't have those probs. The very first thing I'd do here is buy a very low mileage scsi hard drive and I would throw your ram into a stress tester and make sure it's not broken. I mean, the way TOS is, it makes sense that it's likely that the exact same portion of memory would be used for your disk cache on every boot. Well what if that portion of your ram happens to be bad. Try swapping simms around to see if things go differently. Then I would also disconnect ALL the other scsi devices. I would also buy a brand new scsi cable. I know this is all pricey but I'd hedge my bets on that if you did all of it and you went over everything with a fine tooth comb, you'd quickly find that freemint isn't the problem. It's unfortunate but you've got some hardware probs there. I vaguely remember you saying you run a TT? Well I have 2 TT's both running Freemint 1.16.0, one of them with a Nova Mach 64. It works and works pretty well, so there's a solvable problem somewhere that doesn't involve code. Now I'm sure I could probably go through archives and find this out, but what HD Driver software do you use? You should be using Hd-driver 7.8 or above, if you have a CT60 falcon, 8.13, no question. (Some users have had to revert to less than HD-Driver 8 for strange reasons on a CT60.). Thanks, Mark