Very strange SFS behavior.
 

Hi,

When I was trying to clean up the mess on one of my Amiga HD partitions (SFS), I got checksum errors while deleting files. The strange thing is that no mater which file I try to delete, it's always the same block that has the error. The weirdest part is that after a reset, the file which couldn't be deleted because of the checksum error, can now be deleted, and when I continue to delete files, the error occurs again after deleting a couple of files, and of course it's the same block it happens in :crazy Very bizarre behavior indeed.

The partition is located in the first 4GB of the drive, there don't seem to be any interfering patches and I have an A1200+'030. The maxtransfer setting for all my partitions is 0x00010000, so that can't be it. The SFS filesystem structure test program reports the partition to be okay :nuts

Could it have anything to do with the large amount of files on the partition? This only started happening after temporarily copying a large number of extra files to the partition. I don't have a clue, and I don't know what to try :(

Any help is appreciated :great

http://wiki.abime.net/amiga:killergo...winuae_realhdd

According to this

Maxtransfer should be 0x1fe00.
Dont know if this is causing your problems, but its what I use and dont have any issues.

If you are using IDE you should use 0x1FE00 or lower

The ATA protocol the Amiga IDE uses has commands with a sector count field 8-bits wide. Each sector is 512 bytes. The maximum you can transfer is 255 sectors.

255 * 512 = 0x1FE00

SCSI is totally different.

Thanks guys, but...
Tried it just to be sure, but it doesn't work. The maxtransfer setting limits the amount of data transfered, so 0x00010000 is fine. Also, I use IdeFix, which doesn't care about maxtransfer settings (0x00010000 also works without IdeFix).
0x00010000 is lower than 0x0001FE00 ;)

Some IDE devices and CF cards seem to have been designed around DOS/Windows which by default only issues ATA commands which use 7-bits of the sector count field (perhaps legacy signed 8-bit?) i.e. a MAX TRANS of 0xFE00

Although I've tried it, that isn't the problem, either. My HD is a 40GB drive which I bought new in 2005, so it's pretty unlikely that those old limitations still apply. I don't think that this is a simple max transfer problem at all :(

To be honest, I don't think that that is the problem, either :) The drive doesn't make strange noises, but...
... this is always good advice :great
Hehe, I don't think the block is actually bad: After deleting some files the checksum error pops up, then after a reboot I can delete those same files, but when I try to delete more the checksum error pops up again. I think that marking the block as bad will only move the problem to another block, and, it will probably need a reformat of the partition.

I've seen topics over at amiga.org where people say not to use an SFS partition for your temporary internet files. They say the large number of writes contributes to some sort of corruption.

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthre...martfilesystem

Thanks :great

This is indeed what seems to be the problem. All this only started after writing a large number of files to the partition. It's very probable that SFS has bugs which cause some problems, because it's still in BETA stage :( Am I now doomed to use FFS if I want reliability? Oh no :crying

There's also PFS.

Yes, perhaps I'll have a look at that. SFS is just not in a very usable state right now, and can cause errors by just writing a few files to disk :shocked Hopefully someone will finish it someday, because it needs to be rescued from it's awful beta state.

Have you ever thought of trying SFS v184 (older version with the bonus of SCSI-direct 8GB support built in - double the usable size of your drive). I've never heard of anyone complain about it? It was the one originally developed before a new developer took over. SFS has always been beta however, so no guarantees.

Or a more recent (than v184) but older version of SFS someone on this board might be able to recommend as trouble free.

Another option is using some of the free SCSI patches available and a FFS 64-bit alternative. The upside to this is you might be able to use all of your hard drive. I'm adding the required files to do this to the next ClassicWB release, but I can zip them up for you and place them in the zone.

An older version, eh? Couldn't hurt to try, although I can use the whole drive (40GB) because of IdeFix with SFS. I'll take it under consideration :great.

I didn't read you were using IDE-fix - the most popular large drive solution. :)

Can't really think what else to try, apart from the 64bit FFS versions.

No wonder, It works out of the box :)
Sounds good, too, but I sure hope it isn't BETA software...

It's the one from here, but you have to patch them first to remove, *gasp*, the beta alert:

http://os.amigaworld.de/index.php?lang=en&page=37

You might end up going back to this thread, where people suggest sticking to 3.5/9 and FFS:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=34493

Nice page, thanks :great But... it says 3.1 and I have 3.0. Does the FFS from 3.1 actually work with 3.0? As far as I know the differences between 3.0 and 3.1 are not that big (could be wrong).
I had almost forgotten about that thread. I think I'll stick to WB3.0 for now and try to solve the filesystem issues I have with the patches you've recomended.

Thanks :great

Well, you have two options then - an older SFS version that someone can vouch for.

OR - the patched files I'll put in the zone for you. Yes, they even work in Workbench 2.0 as pointed out by the great Thomas himself (google translated link, original in German):

http://translate.google.co.uk/transl...hdd/index.html

I think the patched FFS can work with IDE-fix, you don't have to use the patched SCSI-device I've put in the pack, but someone might have to confirm that.

This is the method I'll be using for the new ClassicWB packs, which use Workbench 2.0, 3.0 and 3.1.:)

Bloodwych, thank you very much :great I've downloaded the archive you've uploaded and I'll check out an older version of SFS. If that doesn't solve my troubles, then nothing will (apart from PFS, perhaps).

I can still recommend PFS, it's been working on my HD's great for years now :great