Need help with PDS/03 random crashes

[xboxown]

Hello,

I am using PFS3 file system (under HDTools is shows PDF/03). I have this issue with it:

I noticed that Amiga freezes after certain amount of HD activity. For example, I play an mp3 that is 153 minutes and boom it freezes.

Because it is asking the HDD. If I put the mp3 into the RAM it can do 500 minutes fine. With HDD I have a limit of 153 minutes before it freezes.

I can run 20 minutes in intercession to a total of 153 minutes, then it freezes eventually. It does not matter if the HDD is based on mp3 or opening a Window. Now that I have used the HDD for a total of 153 minutes any other HDD that exceeds that requirement cause system freeze. Changed buffer however, determines how many minutes I can use before freezing. If I increase buffer to 8000 I am limited to 2 minutes only of hard drive usage. If I go smaller buffer, I have a longer minute of usage, but eventually the minutes will be exhausted and freezing is imminent.

What advise to solve this problem? Is there away I can infinite minute?


In additional to the above system there are random crashes left and right, even when I sometimes want to open the system disk icon it crashes. Other application crashes, meaning it is not a stable system.

I checked the MaxTransfer and other settings and how I formatted it:

Mine is 0x0001FE00
File System Block size 1024
Reserved blocks at begging 2 end 0
It is pfs3 I clicked icon and select format from menu. Did not pfsformat. That is bad?

Any advise?

[thomas]

Originally Posted by xboxown

Other application crashes, meaning it is not a stable system.

I guess you are mixing up cause and effect. The cause is probably bad RAM or overheating or something like that.

Anyway, tell us something about the Amiga and its equipment.

And then run this and attach the report here:
http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.../hddreport.lha

[xboxown]

I am using V4 FireBird with a 2.5" mechanical hard drive and using coffin R62. I am going to try the HDreport very shortly and see the stats in 20 minutes from now. I will post the results once it runs 100%.

[xboxown]

Just to report further these are the following information:

File System: PDS\03
Identifier: 0x5044303
Mask:0x7FFFFFFE
MaxTransfer: 0x0001FE00
File System block size: 1024

Fast file system
International mode
directory cache
Those are not checked.

[xboxown]

I have the hddreport.txt with me. I am going to take it on my lunch break at 1:00 PM and upload it here. Right now it is 11:52 AM.

[xboxown]

This is the file as promised. I made sure .info is attached as well hehe

[xboxown]

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

So a couple of things.

1)… This on which System? A1200?

Amiga 500

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

2)… you have a ZZ9000USB.Device which is normally used on A3000/4000 systems. Probably not the cause. But wondering if the system disk has been used on a A3K or A4K then transferred to a A1200 then setup for the Vampire?

It could be. I know I downloaded the img from coffin website of R62 version.

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

3)… PDS3? Shouldn’t this be PFS3 on DOS 50465303? PDS as I am aware is for true Native SCSI devices and PFS3 for IDE devices.

Is that why it is acting weird? What should it be then for IDE? What settings should I do?

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

4)… Have you used PFS3 Doctor to scan the partitions for errors? Have look here if you are not sure;

https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=111267

I did. It is happy.

[supaduper]

I would change the Mech HDD for a CF card and see if there is any change, Mech drives are so unreliable now

[xboxown]

Originally Posted by supaduper

I would change the Mech HDD for a CF card and see if there is any change, Mech drives are so unreliable now

Wait...are you saying the fault could be because the hard drive itself is mechanical?

[xboxown]

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

For all PFS3 have a look at this thread

https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=56826

Thomas is more an expert on HDD than I am. But for my none SCSI Native setups I always use PFS3. For native SCSI I tend to use either PFS3 or PDS3 but also using Synchron settings as the SCSI host will allow for it.

The settings such as Mask etc.. is good to go with what you already have. But be aware that changing the PDS3 to PFS3 may mean data destruction. So backup everything first. Then do a fresh clean of the SD card or CF card on Windows using “Diskpart” then use WinUAE or a real Amiga to setup PFS3.

Have read through the Thread link as it explains this with version 18.5 but use 19.2 as 18.5 gave errors on small file read writes as I found out.

Also worth getting hold of AmigaTestKit (If not already), to run some RAM tests first. As Thomas eluded to in his post, it could simply be RAM errors.

If I want to change to PFS3 where would I download the latest up to date pfs3.lha archive with the most bug fixes? I want to tackle one partition first.

[thomas]

PFS3 AIO is available on Aminet: http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/pfs3aio

If you like to read documentation, it's available with the older original distribution: http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/PFS3_53

To change file system identifier run HDToolbox and select your HDD. First go to Add/Update, delete the existing PDS\3 entry and add a new entry, select pfs3aio from where you unpacked it and overtype the identifier by 0x50465303.

Then select one partition after the other, go to Change... and change the type to PFS\3 which should now be in the list.

Be careful: if you change the identifier of a partition, HDToolbox thinks this is a destructive action and warns you that all data is lost. You can ignore this warning if you change from one flavour of PFS to another one. But if you change anything else on a partition, you get the same warning and this time it might be true. So be careful to only change the identifier.

[supaduper]

Originally Posted by xboxown

Wait...are you saying the fault could be because the hard drive itself is mechanical?

Yes

[derSammler]

Originally Posted by supaduper

Yes

What complete non-sense is that? As if the file system would care about the storage being flash-based or mechanical. You are free to hate mechanical storage, but when someone asks for help, stay unbiased.

No, the fact he's using a mechanical hard disk does not cause PFS to crash.

In order to rule out that there is some hardware fault, I would suggest trying with FFS first. If you get the crash with that as well, something with your Amiga is wrong. If FFS works, you could just try SFS instead of PFS, as PFS for whatever reason may not like your setup.

[supaduper]

All I suggest is that he tries a CF card to rule it out, it is no big job to do

[xboxown]

Thank you derSammler for your logical, mature and unbiased response and defending the truth and fact. I appreciate it 100%.

Thank you so much thomas. I will work on this immediately. I will make backup of the data first just in case something went wrong first. I will make sure they are pfs\3 instead of pds.

[supaduper]

It was only a suggestion my friend nothing biased about it at all

[xboxown]

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

Dersammler. There is no bias or unbias here. A lot of the community have moved away from the older mechanical stuff to newer digital stuff. It isn’t uncommon if your PSU or something on the motherboard isn’t feeding enough voltage to a device for things to fail. CF and SD cards consume less power. Therefore the OPs issue may not be filesystem. As you know fault finding is always a Amiga Owners issue when trying to work out problems. I’ve had my fair share of them and thought is it my HDD. After messing about it turned out to be a power issue. Or it was a filesystem issue because I used PDS3 instead of PFS3. Nothing against FFS. But SFS is no longer supported. So what’s the point of offering this up as a solution? It may make things worse and then you 2 faults to deal with.
As we all say “Welcome to Amiga Ownership”.

I also understand where Boing-Ball coming from. Just to say something, my PSU is custom made by the best PSU developer that is so powerful it can come close to a normal power PC PSU in spec. Even the case is metal. Serious hard core PSU.

[Don_Adan]

Looks like code bug, if it always happened after 153 minutes of playing from HD. You can check other file system, like FFS or SFS. Or other programs for playing.

[xboxown]

The motherboard is in good order.

[xboxown]

I did the changes and now the entire thing crashes with program filed (error #80000008) even if I tried booting on CLI

What do I do here?