CF partitions destroyed by WinUAE.

Marchie · 04 August 2017, 06:10

Took a CF card from my Amiga, put it into a USB card reader, mounted the drive in WinUAE and it shows up fine.

After two or three starts however, two of my five partitions now come up as 'NDOS'.

How and why did WinUAE f**k up my partitions? Is this common?

thomas · 04 August 2017, 07:45

More details needed.

I suppose that you removed the CF card from the Amiga and added it to WinUAE for a reason. Most likely you wanted and probably did save some new files on the card.

My guess is that it wasn't WinUAE which damaged the partitions but it was your config, either in AmigaOS or in WinUAE, which is not able to handle the size of the CF card. Probably the card is bigger than 4GB and your Amiga software does not support large harddrives.

It could also be an Amiga virus.

Toni Wilen · 04 August 2017, 08:14

It has always been hardware or Amiga-side software problem when Amiga drive gets corrupted.

If this was first time CF card was in USB reader, it can be as simple as bad reader (few days ago there was similar problem, bad reader corrupted data randomly) or bad card that does not work with faster transfer modes.

Mount the CF in UAE controller (I assume it still is detected as Amiga drive = partition table is intact). Enable logging (Paths panel -> full logging), boot from WB floppy disk, wait for boot to finish or when dos requester arrives, quit emulator. Attach winuaelog.txt.

(I know it is too late now but it is very good idea to take a full image backup of the drive first. It probably still is good idea to prevent more damage.)

EDIT: Are the two non-working partitions two last partitions of drive? Data most likely is not lost.

Marchie · 04 August 2017, 10:14

Thanks for the replies.

I was trying to install some software form a CD, which I could not get to mount, either in the drive, as an ISO, or as a folder (did mount in Amiga Forever though), hence I was rebooting UAE frequently to try new settings.

The partitions were the first two (including boot) partitions.

Logs attached.

(Any advice on how to get a CD to show up would be really helpful too)

Toni Wilen · 04 August 2017, 11:45

Partition table looks ok and each partition's dostype field at the beginning of each partition is also intact.

What is your real Amiga hardware? Does it have scsi.device update installed?

In worst case your setup has always been broken and last partition is located in same space as first 4 partitions (4G wrap around) and last partition writes finally overwrote existing data in first two partitions. Unfortunately there is nothing in emulation that can be used to detect or prevent it.

CD mount: tick CDFS automount and choose correct drive (or if it is image, set path to image file). Or manually edit mountlist (device=uaescsi.device), like it usually happens with real hardware.

Marchie · 04 August 2017, 14:50

You have totally sprung me - it's not drive sizes (they were well under 1g) but I was sloppy with disk speeds when I partitioned the drive. I have also switched to pfs instead of ffs.

Think I got to the bottom of the CD thing - the disc was mounting but wasn't showing up on the desktop until I hit cleanup.

04 August 2017, 06:10	#1
Marchie Registered User Join Date: Jul 2016 Location: Sydney / London Posts: 592	CF partitions destroyed by WinUAE. Took a CF card from my Amiga, put it into a USB card reader, mounted the drive in WinUAE and it shows up fine. After two or three starts however, two of my five partitions now come up as 'NDOS'. How and why did WinUAE f**k up my partitions? Is this common?

04 August 2017, 08:14	#3
Toni Wilen WinUAE developer Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Hämeenlinna/Finland Age: 49 Posts: 26,553	It has always been hardware or Amiga-side software problem when Amiga drive gets corrupted. If this was first time CF card was in USB reader, it can be as simple as bad reader (few days ago there was similar problem, bad reader corrupted data randomly) or bad card that does not work with faster transfer modes. Mount the CF in UAE controller (I assume it still is detected as Amiga drive = partition table is intact). Enable logging (Paths panel -> full logging), boot from WB floppy disk, wait for boot to finish or when dos requester arrives, quit emulator. Attach winuaelog.txt. (I know it is too late now but it is very good idea to take a full image backup of the drive first. It probably still is good idea to prevent more damage.) EDIT: Are the two non-working partitions two last partitions of drive? Data most likely is not lost. Last edited by Toni Wilen; 04 August 2017 at 08:22.

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04 August 2017, 07:45	#2
thomas Registered User Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Germany Posts: 7,025	More details needed. I suppose that you removed the CF card from the Amiga and added it to WinUAE for a reason. Most likely you wanted and probably did save some new files on the card. My guess is that it wasn't WinUAE which damaged the partitions but it was your config, either in AmigaOS or in WinUAE, which is not able to handle the size of the CF card. Probably the card is bigger than 4GB and your Amiga software does not support large harddrives. It could also be an Amiga virus.

04 August 2017, 11:45	#5
Toni Wilen WinUAE developer Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Hämeenlinna/Finland Age: 49 Posts: 26,553	Partition table looks ok and each partition's dostype field at the beginning of each partition is also intact. What is your real Amiga hardware? Does it have scsi.device update installed? In worst case your setup has always been broken and last partition is located in same space as first 4 partitions (4G wrap around) and last partition writes finally overwrote existing data in first two partitions. Unfortunately there is nothing in emulation that can be used to detect or prevent it. CD mount: tick CDFS automount and choose correct drive (or if it is image, set path to image file). Or manually edit mountlist (device=uaescsi.device), like it usually happens with real hardware.

04 August 2017, 14:50	#6
Marchie Registered User Join Date: Jul 2016 Location: Sydney / London Posts: 592	You have totally sprung me - it's not drive sizes (they were well under 1g) but I was sloppy with disk speeds when I partitioned the drive. I have also switched to pfs instead of ffs. Think I got to the bottom of the CD thing - the disc was mounting but wasn't showing up on the desktop until I hit cleanup.

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