Hardfile creation fail, how to deal with (presumably) bad blocks

Kapz · 19 October 2020, 09:00

Hi

Yesterday I tried to make a hardfile from my old physical Amiga hard drive - an IDE WD Caviar 2540 @ 500MB.
The disk has been used in my A1200 which is expanded with a Blizzard 1230 card with 68882 FPU.

Connected to an old IBM pc with native IDE ports running latest WinUAE on Windows XP the disk is immediately detected by WinUAE and I am able to start the hardfile creation process.
This process however stops after about 84% completion with the error "Hard drive image file creation failed. Error 4:23 (<unknown>)" and I suspect this is due to bad blocks on the disk (I recall having a folder called "DO NOT TOUCH" or similar as accessing files in this folder would trigger read errors).
This of course raises the question whether this can be dealt with - or if it's actually something else that I do wrong at this stage?

From WinUAE I am able to boot to Workbench 3.1 from the phycical disk and I can open the partitions on the drive, see my programs and files etc.
The physical hard drive has been added to WinUAE as "IDE (Auto)" and HDToolBox sees the disk right away without any changes to tool types. Upon startup it does however complain that drives has been added or removed from the system and that the information needs to be recorded.

Now I'm in need of some help on how to deal with the bad blocks that I am pretty sure are present on the hard drive so that a hardfile can hopefully be created by WinUAE.
HDToolBox do have a button labeled "Modify Bad Block List" but as I'm not even sure HDToolBox is the right approach to deal with the problem, I'd really appreciate it if someone with greater expertise in this field than I have could throw in an idea or two before I cause total irreversible havoc to the drive

PS - Sorry if this post was submitted to the wrong forum, it's a bit related to WinUAE and on the other hand it isn't but I assume that a moderator will deal with this if needed.

AMIGASYSTEM · 19 October 2020, 09:19

A good solution would be to create a HardFile and copy from Dopus4 Amiga side over all the content, because a disk image also carries erros.

Another solution would be to put your HD in a USB Case and make a standard HD image from Windows to use on WinUAE.

Kapz · 19 October 2020, 09:37

> A good solution would be to create a HardFile and copy from Dopus4 Amiga side over all the content, because a disk image also carries erros.
Yes, I have already added a shared folder in WinUAE for transferring content, but this will "only" be an option for tranferring my user data, right?

> Another solution would be to put your HD in a USB Case and make a standard HD image from Windows to use on WinUAE.
Yes, what image creation tool could be suitable for this?

Futhermore:

> ... because a disk image also carries erros.
Actually this won't be a problem at this stage, as the read errors are placed on a non-critical place on the drive. If I could "just" get a hardfile to play with instead of the physical disk a lot would have been accomplished

AMIGASYSTEM · 19 October 2020, 09:55

If with WinUAE you don't succeed, a cloning done by Windows is fine. A standard HD .IMG image just need to be renamed .HDF and you can use it from WinUAE as HardFile.

Kapz · 19 October 2020, 10:00

> If with WinUAE you don't succeed, a cloning done by Windows is fine. A standard HD .IMG image just need to be renamed .HDF and you can use it from WinUAE as HardFile.
Excellent, thanks

Any suggestions on which software to use for this purpose (built in, 3rd party?)

19 October 2020, 09:00	#1
Kapz Registered User Join Date: Oct 2020 Location: Denmark Posts: 3	Hardfile creation fail, how to deal with (presumably) bad blocks Hi Yesterday I tried to make a hardfile from my old physical Amiga hard drive - an IDE WD Caviar 2540 @ 500MB. The disk has been used in my A1200 which is expanded with a Blizzard 1230 card with 68882 FPU. Connected to an old IBM pc with native IDE ports running latest WinUAE on Windows XP the disk is immediately detected by WinUAE and I am able to start the hardfile creation process. This process however stops after about 84% completion with the error "Hard drive image file creation failed. Error 4:23 (<unknown>)" and I suspect this is due to bad blocks on the disk (I recall having a folder called "DO NOT TOUCH" or similar as accessing files in this folder would trigger read errors). This of course raises the question whether this can be dealt with - or if it's actually something else that I do wrong at this stage? From WinUAE I am able to boot to Workbench 3.1 from the phycical disk and I can open the partitions on the drive, see my programs and files etc. The physical hard drive has been added to WinUAE as "IDE (Auto)" and HDToolBox sees the disk right away without any changes to tool types. Upon startup it does however complain that drives has been added or removed from the system and that the information needs to be recorded. Now I'm in need of some help on how to deal with the bad blocks that I am pretty sure are present on the hard drive so that a hardfile can hopefully be created by WinUAE. HDToolBox do have a button labeled "Modify Bad Block List" but as I'm not even sure HDToolBox is the right approach to deal with the problem, I'd really appreciate it if someone with greater expertise in this field than I have could throw in an idea or two before I cause total irreversible havoc to the drive PS - Sorry if this post was submitted to the wrong forum, it's a bit related to WinUAE and on the other hand it isn't but I assume that a moderator will deal with this if needed.

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19 October 2020, 09:19	#2
AMIGASYSTEM Registered User Join Date: Aug 2014 Location: Brindisi (Italy) Age: 70 Posts: 8,252	A good solution would be to create a HardFile and copy from Dopus4 Amiga side over all the content, because a disk image also carries erros. Another solution would be to put your HD in a USB Case and make a standard HD image from Windows to use on WinUAE.

19 October 2020, 09:37	#3
Kapz Registered User Join Date: Oct 2020 Location: Denmark Posts: 3	> A good solution would be to create a HardFile and copy from Dopus4 Amiga side over all the content, because a disk image also carries erros. Yes, I have already added a shared folder in WinUAE for transferring content, but this will "only" be an option for tranferring my user data, right? > Another solution would be to put your HD in a USB Case and make a standard HD image from Windows to use on WinUAE. Yes, what image creation tool could be suitable for this? Futhermore: > ... because a disk image also carries erros. Actually this won't be a problem at this stage, as the read errors are placed on a non-critical place on the drive. If I could "just" get a hardfile to play with instead of the physical disk a lot would have been accomplished

19 October 2020, 09:55	#4
AMIGASYSTEM Registered User Join Date: Aug 2014 Location: Brindisi (Italy) Age: 70 Posts: 8,252	If with WinUAE you don't succeed, a cloning done by Windows is fine. A standard HD .IMG image just need to be renamed .HDF and you can use it from WinUAE as HardFile.

19 October 2020, 10:00	#5
Kapz Registered User Join Date: Oct 2020 Location: Denmark Posts: 3	> If with WinUAE you don't succeed, a cloning done by Windows is fine. A standard HD .IMG image just need to be renamed .HDF and you can use it from WinUAE as HardFile. Excellent, thanks Any suggestions on which software to use for this purpose (built in, 3rd party?)

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