harddisk format tool which can mark bad blocks ?

[Overdoc]

Hi,
I have spent dozens of hours setting up an old Amiga-500 harddisk in a controller called '3-State AT Apollo 500'.
Now, at last, I have partitioned the harddisk and also set 'full format' when doing this in the install tool, but unfortunately it somehow didn't work.

I can now see the harddisk when I boot Workbench, I can also double-click it and it will show an empty window, but whenever I try to copy something on the disk it will say 'disk not validated'.

Then, I have tried to format the HD from Workbench, like I have already done in the past with an Apha Data HD. The format starts and goes on well, but unfortunately there seems to be a disk errror on some 250 block of around 4000, so format stops and gives up, without any possibility to continue

I have also tried formatting with HD-toolbox, but this one doesn't even recognize the harddisk and tells me 'driver not found' (I have read the AT Apollo 500 uses some proprietary drive access method ?!) At least it seem incompatible with standard ID controller or A-590, etc.

Now, I am searching for a format tool which I can start from Workbench or DOS, which will recoginze the drive and format the HD with marking bad blocks, so that I can format and use the HD ?

Maybe anyone knows such a tool ? (must work on A-500 or A-500-plus with kick 2.0)

Thanks a lot!

[Chain]

http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/2b_WFormat

[Toni Wilen]

Getting disk not validated without any other error requester usually means logical disk errors (using OFS instead of FFS for example)

What is the first disk "bad" block? (exactly)
Size of drive?

[Overdoc]

Thanks for your replies!

Well, the first bad block was 253, if I remember correctly ?!
Size of the drive is slightly over 2gb.

I have now tried formatting from Directory Opus (had to take an A-500plus and additionally had to install a 1MB expansion because otherwise it would tell me 'out of memory' just for formatting a disk ?!?)
Directory Opus has an verify option, which I unchecked. Now, it formatted up to block 320 (or something), but then again failed because of an error (despite verify off!!).
Afterwards I did a quick format, and then tried instaling Workbench on the HD again. It worked !!!

BUT:
Now, HD cannot boot
How can I make it bootable ?

When I first tried formatting the HD with the original AT Apollo install tool, it could boot to a CLI prompt, at least (but then had the disk not validated error when trying to save something on it)

Would there be an option to format the disk bootable with Worseformat from Aminet ?

Thanks again!!

EDIT: I booted the original install disk again and noticed that I can set the disk from 'mount' to 'boot' without having to re-fomat.
Now it boots fine with kick 2.0, but it doesn't with kick 1.3 ?!
Shouldn't kick 1.3 already have autoboot function ?

[thomas]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Getting disk not validated without any other error requester usually means logical disk errors (using OFS instead of FFS for example)

It can also mean that there is not enough memory for the size of the partition to validate. Getting an "out of memory" message is rather luxurious. Usually the format program finishes its work but the disk just stays unvalidated. But if you reboot with memory added, the partition magically becomes valid. (Can be tested quite easily with WinUAE).

Now it boots fine with kick 2.0, but it doesn't with kick 1.3 ?!

1.3 needs FastFileSystem in the RDB because it is not in ROM. Use the Add/Update dialogue in HDToolbox and keep your fingers crossed that the firmware of your controller supports loading file systems from the RDB.

[Overdoc]

Thanx Thomas!
I just noticed that in the readme file for the installer disk there is something mentined that 2GB is the maximum for a partiton.
But, my HD is slightly above 2GB, so this could indeed be the reason for the disk not validated error!

Unfortunately, HDToolbox doesn't let me do anything with the drive because it does not recognize the controller
But the install disk let me choose between normal file system and fast file system (I chose fast file system)
But does this have anything to do with being bootable from kick 2.0 only instead of 1.3 ?

[thomas]

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Unfortunately, HDToolbox doesn't let me do anything with the drive because it does not recognize the controller

Find out the name of the controller's driver (something.device) and change the tooltypes in the icon information of HDToolbox accordingly. There should be a line reading

SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=scsi.device

change this to

SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=something.device

If it's not there, add it. If there are brackets around the line, remove them.

According to this page the name is AT-Apollo.device.

[pandy71]

At first verify HDD by some decent low level software (eg MHDD) http://hddguru.com/