Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cbmvax!cbmehq!cbmdeo!adspdk!hclausen
From: hclausen@adspdk.UUCP (Henrik Clausen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Help! 3000 Hard Drive full: Won't Verify
Summary: Don't worry, you files will be fine.
Message-ID: <185c6bd2.ARN125e@adspdk.UUCP>
Date: 14 Dec 90 09:34:58 GMT
References: <16012@venera.isi.edu>
Reply-To: hclausen@adspdk.UUCP
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga
Organization: Graffiti Data
Lines: 52

In article <16012@venera.isi.edu>, Sean Schur writes:

> I need help. We have a 100MB hard drive on a 3000/25. The students
> filled an entire 65MB partition. Now there is a checksum error and the
> partition won't verify at all. What can I do? I imagine that the 
> problem is that the last file written, which didn't fit is causing the
> problem. 

   Might, and might not. There are several ways to obtain this effect, a
program crashing while writing to the disk is the more common cause. Just
filling up the disk does not create trouble on it's own.

> We have an ethernet set up and decided to just transfer all the files to 
> another machine via the ethernet, then reformat the hard drive. However,
> when the copying got to the file with the checksum error it failed, and
> unfortunately it was only about 1/3 of the way through.

   I'd suggest you take this approach, just avoiding the corrupt file. Use
several Copy commands to get things over. After the file that fails, go
into that directory and copy everything else. Work back to the root, and
copy every directory (with the ALL switch) and file to your spare HD. Be
sure that the amount of space it takes on the remote HD is correct.

> Does anyone have any ideas, short of refomatting the partition and losing
> all the files? 

   Your best choice is to backup the files as described or with Quarterback
(which I use), or MRBackup (doesn't prescan the HD). There's absolutely no
reason to loose anything but the corrupt file. Basically, you can read
everything on the drive except that one, so it's just a matter of method to
back it up.

> fixdisk  could solve the problem, but it only works on partitions under 
> 48MB and this one is 65MB. Are there any other PD programs that might fix 
> this?

   I've used DiskX to erase the pointer to the corrupted file, but that of
course takes detailed knowledge of the file system, blocks, and hex
numbers. Works fine, but you can do immense damage to the file system if
you do the WRONG thing. Fixdisk does a nice job on the disks it can manage,
BTW.
 
> Thanks in advance for any help.

   The above should get you going - good luck!


                                                 -Henrik
______________________________________________________________________________
| Henrik Clausen, Graffiti Data | If the Doors of Perception where cleansed, |
| ...{pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!  | Man would see Reality as it is - Infinite. |
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