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Geoff Bacon

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2012 2:44 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 11 Jan 2007 Posts: 2321 Location: Bristol ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Windows XP, USB

I've finally managed to corrupt the file system on my toppy disk drive (I had scanned some low quality signals to test removal of duplicates in TopManager).

The current situation is that I haven't said OK to "Do you want to reformat the disk" when the toppy boots.

As I've never used TopfHDRW, I thought I would give it a go rather than just reformatting. The problem is that my ancient Dell Dimension E520 uses SATA disks and the toppy disk is IDE. The DVD on the pc is also SATA (I understand this is unusual).

Can anyone advise a cheap method of connecting an IDE disk to the pc? I know that one can get a IDE to USB 2.0 converter on ebay but I don't know if one can then repair the disk using TopfHDRW. Also, if I decided to transfer the recordings to the pc, I would be limited to USB speeds (i.e. slow) and I would therefore prefer a IDE to SATA solution.

I did try searching the site but I didn't see anything particularly relevent.

Cheers
Geoff

_________________
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TF5800, IA On, TS On, F/W: MS6 Recommended F/W 12/9/2009 -FmSy+EvEzHsPfUUuZ
TAPs: PcControl B1.3; StopExit v1.01; QuickJump 1.72; MyInfo B5.6; Font Manager 1.0d; EPG2MEI v0.96; EIT Sub (Game) v0.6; Extend v1.7; SecCache (UK) v0.4; Channel Organiser B2X7; CrashTrace v0.4; MyStuff 6.5 Beta 3j;
Sig generated by MyInfo on 30/3/13™

andyfras

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2012 4:24 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 2789 Location: Fleet, Hampshire (Hannington)

Geoff Bacon wrote:

I know that one can get a IDE to USB 2.0 converter on ebay but I don't know if one can then repair the disk using TopfHDRW.

That's how I do it, mostly. I also have an old Win2K PC which I use for lower level stuff like manufacturer's diagnostics.

Quote:

Also, if I decided to transfer the recordings to the pc, I would be limited to USB speeds (i.e. slow) and I would therefore prefer a IDE to SATA solution.

USB2 is fast enough. The disk's IDE data speed would limit the SATA speed anyway.

One thing to watch out for is that there's some sort of checksum that gets upset by TopfHDRW when copying to, and then back from, an intermediate drive. It seems to affect about 25% of the recordings, and it causes the process to halt while you select 'Ignore'.

If you want an IDE to SATA converter that's the opposite of what's normally used in a Toppy, I bought one of these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/400189679323

It works fine, but you might want to source one more local, as it took several weeks to arrive.

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juwlz

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2012 5:07 pm

MyStuff Team Joined: 12 Aug 2005 Posts: 9627 Location: Wokingham, Berkshire (Hannington transmitter)

I use a Plexus USB to IDE & SATA Adapter (which I think was originally recommended on this site); that model is no longer available, but you should be able to find something similar.

Julie

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Geoff Bacon

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2012 5:29 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 11 Jan 2007 Posts: 2321 Location: Bristol ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Windows XP, USB

Hi Andy,

Do you think USB-2-0-TO-SATA-IDE-CABLE-FOR-HDD-W-POWER-ADAPTER-UK would be suitable? (I think I need something to provide power to the disk because the power connector in the pc looks different from that going into the disk - and it only has about 2 inches of free cable between the connectors!).

I don't think there will be 100s of recordings on the disk but I'll take on board your comment about copying via an intermediate disk.

[edit] Any idea why it wouldn't work on Vista or W7? It doesn't say that any software is provided and I would have expected it to be a basic function.[/edit]

@Juwlz - thanks for the response.

Geoff

andyfras

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2012 10:03 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 2789 Location: Fleet, Hampshire (Hannington)

Geoff Bacon wrote:

Do you think USB-2-0-TO-SATA-IDE-CABLE-FOR-HDD-W-POWER-ADAPTER-UK would be suitable? (I think I need something to provide power to the disk because the power connector in the pc looks different from that going into the disk - and it only has about 2 inches of free cable between the connectors!).

That's got everything you need (I've got one just like it). The power supply has the 4 pin Molex for powering an IDE disk, and there's a Molex to SATA power adapter too.

The USB adapter will work on Vista/W7.

I've never tried TopfHDRW/Doctor on Vista/W7 though.

Geoff Bacon

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2012 11:09 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 11 Jan 2007 Posts: 2321 Location: Bristol ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Windows XP, USB

Many thanks andy; I'll give it a go.

The recordings aren't really important as it is my spare toppy so, if the worst comes to the worst, I can just reformat (I have \ProgramFiles)

Cheers
Geoff

Geoff Bacon

Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 7:12 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 11 Jan 2007 Posts: 2321 Location: Bristol ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Windows XP, USB

Received my USB 2.0 to SATA/IDE kit today.

On using it, TopfHDDoctor generated multiple "invalid index in fsck_04_scandirectories" errors.

Repaired the disk but very little left of use (2 recordings which I didn't want).

Not a real problem, just a PITA.

Reformatted disk in Toppy and reloaded ProgramFiles from TopManager Snapshot (had to reload a couple of taps that weren't in the snapshot).

Geoff

andyfras

Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 10:20 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 2789 Location: Fleet, Hampshire (Hannington)

If you want to recover more from the disk, use Scan & Match in TopfHDRW. You can do this even after formatting. It will take a few hours for the scan.

If successful, you'll need to rename the recordings, as it uses only embedded data for the title.

Geoff Bacon

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 7:54 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 11 Jan 2007 Posts: 2321 Location: Bristol ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Windows XP, USB

@andyfras

Thanks for that info, I didn't realise TopfHDRW had that capability.

Actually, having done the scan & match, rewrite, it came up with an error in cluster 2. After performing the recommended scan, it created about 1500 lost cluster files. Coupled with the 1200 recovered recordings, this meant that it took ages for the Toppy or Topset to process the DataFiles directory. Tried doing it twice but it kept having a problem with cluster 2.

After deleting "short" recordings and the lost cluster files, I still had about 800 "recordings" left. As most of these had no info in the file name, I decided it was more effort than it was worth and ended up reformatting the disk and recovering from the TopManager snapshot.

Still I know what might be possible next time (hopefully never).

Cheers
Geoff

ccs

Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2012 10:20 pm

Frequent contributor Joined: 30 Oct 2007 Posts: 1427 Location: E Yorkshire Belmont Transmitter

See next post....

Last edited by ccs on Fri Aug 03, 2012 9:36 am; edited 1 time in total
_________________
TF5810, F/W: MS6 Recommended F/W 12/9/2009 -FmXl+CtEzIScVdZ
TAPs: EIT Sub v0.6; EPG2MEI v0.96; MPDisplayLITE V1.2; MyInfo B5.6; SecCache (UK) v0.4; Extend v1.7; MyStuff 6.4;
Sig generated by MyInfo on 15/2/13

ccs

Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2012 9:35 am

Frequent contributor Joined: 30 Oct 2007 Posts: 1427 Location: E Yorkshire Belmont Transmitter

Just re-posting as it may have got missed after last weekend's clock issues...

Geoff Bacon wrote:

I decided it was more effort than it was worth and ended up reformatting the disk and recovering from the TopManager snapshot.

I've just got my "spare" 5810 up and running and tried to use TopManager/snapshot (via a win7 64bit pc) to recreate ProgramFiles from my other 5810.

I had lots of problems, basically the C457/run cycle, and eventually pinned it down to 2 taps which were corrupt on the pc snapshot.

The last record in both taps didn't match the original downloaded version.

When I copied the taps individually with Antares to the 5810 using the downloaded internet versions, everything was fine.

Having said that, I had also copied the whole of ProgramFiles (and subdirectories) onto my pc using Antares and the same 2 taps had exactly the same corruptions.

All 5 taps in ProgramFiles were ok. 5 out of 7 taps in autostart were ok.
All text files were ok.

This might help.........

Last line of epg2mei.tap - corrupt

Code:

< 00 00 00 00 00 01Q 14 00 00 00 00 00 01¢ì 00 01¢è 00 01¢ä 00 01”P 00 01õ€ 00 00 0FT 00 00:œ 00 00 11¨ 00 01õ@ 00 01¡È 00 01Ð 00 00ÆÔ 00 01õÀ 00 01¢à 00 01¢L 00 01¡8 00 01¢Ü 00 00¯d 00 00 00 00 00 01¢H 00 01 1CT 00 01¢Ø 00 01• 1C 00 01¢Ô 00 01¢Ð 00 00‹¸ 00 01¢D 00 01¢Ì 00 01¢È 00 01¢@ 00 00 16l 00 00.„ 00 00¤ 00 00h 00 01* 08 00 00 18( 00 01”< 00 00=H 00 01”8 00 01¢Ä 00 01¢À 00 01¢¼ 00 01‘ 10 00 01¢< 00 01¡Ä 00 01-ø 00 01¡À 00 01¸ 00 00 00 00 00 01¡¼ 00 01&H 00 01¢¸ 00 01¢´ 00 01¢° 00 01”œ 00 01¢¬ 00 01¢8 00 00~ì 00 01¢¨ 00 00 00 00 00 01¢¤ 00 01”¨ 00 00ö 1C 00 01c¸ 00 01¢ 00 01¢œ 00 00¾ 18 00 01nà 00 01nÜ 00 01nØ 00 01nÐ 00 01nÈ 00 01nÀ 00 01n¼ 00 01n´ 00 01n¬ 00 01n¤ 00 01n 00 01n˜ 00 01n 00 01n„ 00 01nx 00 01np 00 01nh 00 01n\ 00 01nP 00 01nD 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01o 00 01o 18 00 01o 10 00 01o 08 00 01o 00 00 01nø 00 01nð 00 01nè 13$5F$5FW‡eC! 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Last line of epg2mei.tap - ok

Code:

_________________
TF5810, F/W: MS6 Recommended F/W 12/9/2009 -FmXl+CtEzIScVdZ
TAPs: EIT Sub v0.6; EPG2MEI v0.96; MPDisplayLITE V1.2; MyInfo B5.6; SecCache (UK) v0.4; Extend v1.7; MyStuff 6.4;
Sig generated by MyInfo on 15/2/13

Geoff Bacon

Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2012 10:05 am

Frequent contributor Joined: 11 Jan 2007 Posts: 2321 Location: Bristol ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Windows XP, USB

@ccs

I've no idea why the corrupt file has 39 trailing nulls; I'm just using the length of the file returned by the toppy so I can only assume that there was a problem when the file was snapshotted from the toppy.

I did think that it might be because the file was a multiple of 512 but adding 39 to the length of the file on my system (106940) does not divide by 512.

It is interesting that Antares also had a problem. Was this before or after you had put the valid files back on the toppy?.

Geoff

ccs

Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2012 10:25 am

Frequent contributor Joined: 30 Oct 2007 Posts: 1427 Location: E Yorkshire Belmont Transmitter

I copied ProgramFiles from my working 5810 to my pc using TopManager/snapshot.

I then used TopManager to copy these files onto the "new" 5810.

The C457/run loop started so I copied ProgramFiles from the working 5810 onto my pc using Antares, and then copied them onto to "new" 5810, again using Antares.
I reformatted the disc first.

The C457/run loop still persisted, but I could boot tapless and record programs ok.

It took a while to work out what was wrong as I suspected h/w as I had just put in a power supply and disc drive.

Eventually I found that 2 tapes were corrupted.

I used WinMerge to compare the various ProgramFiles on the pc.

Snapshot and Antaries versions were identical.

I created a new "ProgramFiles" on my pc using internet downloaded versions of taps etc. and WinMerge highlighted the 2 corrupt taps in both Snapshot and Antares.

I haven't repeated the copying, as the corruptions using 2 different programs seemed to be fairly conclusive.

SeccacheUK was the other tap which was corrupted.

Code:

00 00l` 00 00l\ 00 00lX 00 00kØ 00 009x 00 00 00 00 00 00lT 00 00lP 00 00lL 00 00a¸ 00 00lH 00 00kÔ 00 00lD 00 00 00 00 00 00l@ 00 00bô 00 00TT 00 00l< 00 00l8 13$5F$5FW‡eC!

Code:

00 00l` 00 00l\ 00 00lX 00 00kØ 00 009x 00 00 00 00 00 00lT 00 00lP 00 00lL 00 00a¸ 00 00lH 00 00kÔ 00 00lD 00 00 00 00 00 00l@ 00 00bô 00 00TT 00 00l< 00 00l8 13$5F$5FW‡eC! 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Last edited by ccs on Fri Aug 03, 2012 10:50 am; edited 1 time in total
_________________
TF5810, F/W: MS6 Recommended F/W 12/9/2009 -FmXl+CtEzIScVdZ
TAPs: EIT Sub v0.6; EPG2MEI v0.96; MPDisplayLITE V1.2; MyInfo B5.6; SecCache (UK) v0.4; Extend v1.7; MyStuff 6.4;
Sig generated by MyInfo on 15/2/13

Geoff Bacon

Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2012 10:46 am

Frequent contributor Joined: 11 Jan 2007 Posts: 2321 Location: Bristol ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Windows XP, USB

@ccs

Thanks for the info.

From what you describe, I can only guess that the file structure on the source toppy is slightly "iffy" but that it doesn't cause any issues while the taps are in situ.

Might be a good idea to also replace the two taps on the original 5810; having said that, it is working at present!

Geoff

ccs

Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2012 10:55 am

Frequent contributor Joined: 30 Oct 2007 Posts: 1427 Location: E Yorkshire Belmont Transmitter

Geoff Bacon wrote:

I'll rename one of the taps on the "working" toppy, re-create it and then copy ProgramFiles back to the pc - may be a while though.

All times are GMT

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