Re: Photdesk destroyed my ADFS partition! HELP!!!

Manu T <manu-t@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I noticed the HD led lit when I changed resolution. But THAT shouldn't be a
problem!

It might have been. My HD starting making scratching noises when I switched
it on the other day, and the light was permanently on. I'm not sure how
general the principle is, but an continuously-active disc light may mean the
drive has detect an error or is battling against one. It wasn't detected by
the system when it was making scratching noises and was active, so something
was seriously wrong.

I've already tried these programs. So yes, I presume the partition table is
already beyond repair. Then I tried the HDForm from my older Backup. That
gave a "broken directory"error. Then I downloaded the " RISC OS 4 Default
Boot sequence CD ISO image" Tried the HDForm from that CD (the cd-drive is
still functionable thank god), that went OK. Then coppied the whole CD to
the HD to be able to boot (at last). But that gave an error "No support for
RISCOS 4.30"...GRRRRRRRR!!!!! Damn you Paul Middleton... supply the proper
things on your bloody RISCOS website!!!

I know it's a bit late now, but the first rule of data recovery is not to
try things if you don't know what you're doing. At the very least a second
opinion will stop you doing something in the heat of the moment. In most
cases a drive that's switched off will not deteriorate, so switch it off to
go and seek help. Don't switch it on again until you have a plan in place.
You may have to act quickly... any delays increase the risk of the drive
failing catastrophically.

The second rule is: harddrives are cheap. So if you need a working system
in the interim, go buy a spare and reinstall onto that.

The third rule is: if it's not mechanical failure, always work on a clone
of the disc and not the disc itself. There are tools for Windows, Linux and
other systems (including ARM Linux) that will clone one disc onto another.
If at all possible, it's best to take an image from the suspect drive, then
work on a backup of the image. If you mess up, you can always go back to
the first image.

If it /is/ mechanical failure (any strange errors/noises/smells?) then it's
a much more difficult area and worth asking for advice. All you need to do
is be able to keep the drive running long enough to whip a disc image off
it, but frequently the drive won't be detected.

Nothing wrong with the connector to the drive and the CDrom drive. Both are
IDE and both function fine. It's the bloody partition table that's gone!
Fecking ADFS! I thought Risc PC could withstand nuclear wars... it can't
even withstand a bloody bitmap editing program doing some fake virtual
memory thingy and a resolution switch!

I don't blame you for being frustrated, but it's difficult to suggest what
you can do now. You /may/ still be able to get at some files, but with the
disc map and root directory gone it'll be a much harder job. It's also
bearing in mind that you /still/ quite possibly have a failing disc, and so
any new files on it are still vulnerable.

FWIW the drive I have that went down dated from 1998 and was 6GB. I have
backups, but I did manage to recover everything from it with prompt action
(the 'fridge for 20 mins' trick worked).

IF I keep using Prophet (VERY doubtfull now) then I'm gonna run it under
emulation. At least with a PC or Mac you can have EASY backups on DVD. On
RISCOS it's always a drag to do anything. No support for anything execpt
jpegs, it's goddamn slow (all I see is that blue hourglass and you can only
guess what the stupid machine is actually doing) and even the tinniest thing
costs money.

If your drive dated from 1999 it can't have been very large. I do network
backups: several snapshots of 6GB barely even touch the 120GB capacity of my
backup drive. You could have fitted an extra hard drive to your RPC and
done nightly backups without much hassle. It wouldn't have protected
against, say, lightning, but is better than no backups. A removable HD
(parallel port or Castle USB, say) would be better.

Theo
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Photdesk destroyed my ADFS partition! HELP!!!
    ... cases a drive that's switched off will not deteriorate, ... I have rescued drives with it before. ... of the disc and not the disc itself. ... At least with a PC or Mac you can have EASY backups on DVD. ...
    (comp.sys.acorn.misc)
  • Re: Force middle?
    ... or away, or often right or left, and then we would switch every time ... more FM as the disc moved closer to the end zone, ... then back to FM if they were setting up sideline cuts. ... the back four playing mano a mano. ...
    (rec.sport.disc)
  • Re: SuperDuper - avoiding erasure of target disc
    ... You could just clone your Powerbook disk using Carbon Copy Cloner and sort out SuperDuper when you get back.... ... performing backups of my PowerBook to a LaCie 300GB firewire disc. ... Erase target, ...
    (uk.comp.sys.mac)
  • Re: Creating a boot CD
    ... I thought this was what I was looking for, i.e. imaging. ... need to create a boot disc, as you say on a DVD disc, because that is what ... Acronis TrueImage Home creates these files sized for DVDs, ... No matter what you do, though, be sure to verify the backups. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • user accounts
    ... I asked this question once before but didn't recieve very ... windows loads 2 programs into the notification area, ... switch users,one one user I have 2 programs running,make ... disc. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers)