Anyone here do data recovery from Amiga formatted hard drives?

I have three hard drives from my old A1-XE. One in an external USB housing (PATA) and the two that were inside the XE (SATA), serving as a working drive and as a mirrored manual backup drive.

All of them show up in Media Toolbox with what appear to be valid partition structures, and as automount. But none of them show up on the workbench or in mounter. Between the external USB and the mirrored back up in the case, I thought I had my back-up bases covered. But I'm unable to access any of this data.

Are there any hard drive Gurus out there who would be willing to recover some of my data and put it onto USB stick(s)? I'm willing to pay for such a service and for the USB sticks, of course. I only want the Data: and Programs: partitions from the drives. (at some point, I had even made ADF backup files of all my floppy disk software, using the Catweasel in my A1, which were/are on the Data: partitions.)

If you can do this or know of someone/some company who can, please let me know. My X5000 is ready to receive data now.

Paul

@Paul

Number of hard drives is saved in media tools box I believe; it normally asks you some questions when you open it.

Quote:

mounter has tooltype that sets what device to use.
and Workbench prefs has option to hide/show volumes.

I won’t use the USB for external HD’s, its too slow, better to use SATA controller, and connect it there. I think about ESATA connector a lot, but the standard did not catch on, due USB2/USB3 standard, not so easy to find external hd that use esata.

And I guess they should also not be hot-swapped like USB.

@Paul

You didn't by any chance use the same device names (e.g. DH0: etc.) for the drives on your new machine as you had used on the old one? If so, that might be why you don't see them.

In that case, use Media Toolbox to give the old drives different volume names (e.g. DH0x: etc.).

Best regards,

Niels

@LiveForIt

>> mounter has tooltype that sets what device to use.

Ahhh. . . I have never tried to use mounter 'til now. I didn't know that. That just might get me going on reading my own drive. I'll have to put one of the original A1-XE SATA drives in the case and try that out. Maybe I can get at my own data yet.

@Neils

I think I've managed to use enough combinations of DH,HD, and HB that I should be safe. I'll see next time I get that old drive in again. I noticed my new SSD for the 5000 appends an "n" after the drive identifier , i.e. DH0n. . . I assume for ngfs.If that makes it different enough, then I have plenty of possible combinations.

Once again, thanks guys. I've never been a "professional" when it comes to the Amiga. I knew just enough to get myself in trouble sometimes, and with the XE limping for a year or so, I've forgotten much of that.The X5000 is really shaping up quite nicely now.

Paul

@LiveForIt

I have "Mounter" directed to the correct inteface now. The old drive shows up and lets me "mount" it. But the icon that shows up won't do anything when I click on it. "The icon(s) have no default tool(s)." is what shows up on the workbench titlebar.

The icon shows up named HO2:SFS02 (all correct)with the "hand" on the icon. This was one partition on the old mirrored back up drive in the XE.

This drive is connected to a Sii3112ide SATA card. The current backup drive for the X5000 is normally plugged into that card, too, and is working fine.

Oddly, I had one DOS7 formatted partition which simply shows up automatically on the Workbench as a working icon. That partition is empty, and is labeled FFS.

Progress, I guess, but no prize yet.

Paul

@Paul

So the drives you want to mount is formated with sfs?
Hyperion was unable to acuire a licence of sfs for the X5000 but Aeon did eventually convince Joerg to sell them a licence so SFS ended up in the enhancer package but iirc you need to add it to your kicklayout file and then you can use SFS.

So check the version of sfs in the kickstart directory.
It should be
7.Workbench:> version Kickstart/SmartFileSystem full
SmartFilesystem 1.293 (2015-11-19)
AmigaOS4 PPC A-EON Technology Ltd

Then add these two lines to sys:Kickstart/Kicklayout

MODULE Kickstart/diskcache.library.kmod
MODULE Kickstart/SmartFileSystem

@smf

OK. The partitions now show up. Imagine my disappointment to find that I had formatted them somewhere along the line! So much for recovering my data and several programs.

Has the guy working on Final Wirter ever finished his work? At least I could get that back. All I have at this point is the original floppies. . . if they're even any good anymore.

Thanks smf.

Paul

@Paul

Quote:
The original source code was acquired by Terminills, who has announced an aim to bring the updated program to all Amiga and amigoid platforms (as long as there's user interest and market potential). He hired someone to do the AROS version a few years ago, and a screenshot or two has been shown. The guy seems to be taking his time.

@LiveForIt

ESATA and SATA cables are the same kinda thing just with different plugs on the ends (the drive itself is still actually the same)

Only the case-external plug from the computer is different,

I actually *have* an External-SATA (E-SATA) bracket here...

I just mount on the back of the case and plug to normal SATA ports and the external cable plugs into the ESATA port and connects to the regular SATA connector on the drive itself.

any "ESATA case" would literally be a case and cable arrangement without any controller or electronics outside what the drive normally provides directly I would be guessing based on the above cable I have.

so ESATA is just a SATA controller + HDD with extended cable going through a funny connector bracket...
effectively useless if you have a long enough SATA cable.