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From: hsgj@batcomputer.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: possible preferences bug
Message-ID: <2829@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Date: Thu, 5-Nov-87 18:11:51 EST
Article-I.D.: batcompu.2829
Posted: Thu Nov  5 18:11:51 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Nov-87 09:27:43 EST
References: <310@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>
Reply-To: hsgj@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Dan Green)
Organization: Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY
Lines: 42
Keywords: HD crash

In article <310@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> jwz@SPICE.CS.CMU.EDU (Jamie Zawinski) writes:
>
>I had just gotten a Xebec 20meg hard disk a few days before, and was in the
>process of moving all of my files on to it.
> [...]
>So one day I ran preferences, and saved it, not remembering that it was
>writing the info to the hard disk instead of the floppy where it was needed.
>Well, nothing seemed to be wrong then.  But when I rebooted, at bootup it
>told me that volume DH0: could not be validated.
>
>So I did the only thing I could think of; I backed up the entire hard disk
>(since I could still read from it) and reformatted it.

I do not have a XEBEC, but instead a harddisk from another manufacturer.
However, these comments may still apply:

First, the "Disk not validated" error usually occurs because something
was writing to the disk or a file was still opened, and you rebooted.
If you get the "Disk not validated" error, ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS WAIT.
After about 10 minutes of very slow track to track 'ticks', your hard
disk will be revalidated, and all will be cool.  Make sure to delete
the opened file, which typically will be some number of blocks, but of
a zero file size (or some file size, but zero blocks, I forget which).
Shell (By Dillon/Drew) tells you both the file size and block count
with its 'dir' command.

Second, preferences usually pauses for a second before it begins to
write its info.  Perhaps you rebooted during that pause when a file
somewhere (the system-configuration, maybe) was still open.

By the way, if you do get your problem fixed, having preferences saved
on the hard disk will not help you when you boot (assuming you boot
from a floppy).  Make sure you copy HARDDISK:DEVS/system-configuration
to WBFLOPPY:DEVS/system-configuration.

Hope some of this helped.  Again, if your hard disk has any quality, it
will recover from Not Validated.  If it can't, sue Xebec...

-- Dan Green
-- 
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