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Re: Repairing corrupted IIgs hardisk?
Warren Ernst wrote:
Michael,
Honestly, I think now is a good time to get away from SCSI.
I think you are replying to Mitchell, but...
I agree with you--but that doesn't mean one should not try to recover
the content of a SCSI drive.
And we don't know the source of the damage to the partition sectors.
It is as likely as not that it has nothing to do with the drive itself,
but is a consequence of some intermittent computer or controller
failure.
You didn't say how old that drive you were using it, but it has got to
be more than 5 years of age if it is sufficiently small to be used
effectively on a GS. I repair modern computers for a living (among
other things) and I generally tell clients that drives have an average
lifespan of 5 years - some more, some less. Generally, I don't like
keeping any important data on drives that are any older than 5 years.
Anyway, there are fairly good diagnostic tests out there to tell if
your motherboard and RAM are OK, and it is reasonable to assume that
if RAM or a motherboard pass a test today, they will be OK tomorrow.
The same cannot be true for old hard drives - a drive that passes a
test today could easily die tomorrow.
And random data corruption in DRAM is simply a fact of life as well.
It's fortunate that most mass storage controllers/devices require a
fairly elaborate dance before actually writing to the media, but there
are still significant vulnerable points--such as corruption of the
partition data which some controllers (like the RAMFast) store in
on-card memory, corruption of sector numbers stored in system RAM,
etc. None of this data is protected by redundancy checks, and though
most random errors that result in "wild writes" will do limited or
no damage, low-numbered sectors are quite vulnerable--which is where
the partition map (if used by a controller) will be stored.
This remains true regardless of the age or type of storage media--
which is why regular backups are important.
In fact, the speed and ease of making a full backup of a CF card is,
I think, one of the best reasons for selecting this type of drive.
You're already going through the hassle of restoring a drive from
backups. Why not take this time to go to a compact flash setup
instead? The lack of moving parts in my CF setup makes me sleep
easier, and the ability to do simple backups that don't require a
(possibly faulty) genuine Apple // is a blessing too.
I know there's a waitlist for the next batch of CFFA's, but I believe
the essentially identical (and perhaps slightly superior) Microdrive
is available immediately.
Honestly, this is the way I would go if I were you.
CF is an excellent choice for a modern "hard drive".
-michael
NadaPong: Network game demo for Apple II computers!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
"The wastebasket is our most important design
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