MSTe boot sequence - did my hard drive just fail?

[ChrisM]

I pulled my Mega STe (4 meg RAM, original 40 meg hard drive) out of deep storage a few months ago, gave it a thorough cleaning, and it booted up like a charm from the hard disk.

 

I had been firing it up every so often to look through some old files and generally become reacquainted with the system.  This past weekend I popped in "Dungeon Master" and gave it a spin (booting directly from the floppy).  While that was an absolute nostalgic delight, when I powered the Mega back on sans floppy it wouldn't boot from the hard drive.  If I boot to GEM from a floppy no hard drive shows as available.

 

Did I reset a boot order sequence somehow/am forgetting a secret key stroke/or did my hard drive or controller just finally give up the ghost?

[anzac]

What hard drive driver are you using?

[ChrisM]

1 minute ago, anzac said:

What hard drive driver are you using?

Whatever came stock with the machine - I never touched the driver software.

[TGB1718]

Have you got a boot floppy with hard disk drivers/utilities, if so, might be worth booting from that

and run any utilities to see if it can see the drive/partitions

[ChrisM]

7 minutes ago, TGB1718 said:

Have you got a boot floppy with hard disk drivers/utilities, if so, might be worth booting from that

and run any utilities to see if it can see the drive/partitions

Not handy, but I presume I can download some.  Any recommendations on util software?

[anzac]

The best is HDDDriver I think but it’s paid.

 

pperas driver is easier to get and try and seems to be very good too 

[ParanoidLittleMan]

If it was factory built in Mega STE then driver is most likely AHDI .  What is now freeware and available.

But I guess that drive is what is gone bad - because age. I had original drive in Mega STE too, then replaced it with larger one and used it regularly.

Some years later I put back original one to check some things and it just broke after about half hour.

 

Boot seq. is usual:  first goes boot from floppy drive - if there is autoboot in it's boot sector will execute it first - not case with Dungeon Master (unless some cracker changed it), it starts from AUTO folder what is activated after hard disk autoboot (what starts it's driver) .

 

Anyway, should run some SW to test is hard disk operative, and if yes, need to install hard disk driver. 

http://atari.8bitchip.info/ahpt.html

Above link is for my speed test PRG, and can serve for that. Just click on 'Transfer rate' left, under 'ACSI' leaving other buttons intact .

Then should show drive brand and capacity, transfer speed down.  If not, drive works not. Of course, it may be ACSI-SCSI adapter too, but less chances for that.

If drive is operative need to install driver SW, hoping that no data is damages. I can provide AHDI driver package for that.

[ChrisM]

Thanks for all of the replies, folks!

 

I purchased HDDDriver, got it onto a floppy, and booted the machine up with the floppy inserted.  It booted straight to the hard drive.  LOL!

 

Not surprisingly, the HDDDriver utils shows the drive as happily alive.  That being said, I'm sort of assuming I might be entering an inevitable death spiral with this drive and would like to copy off the contents (even if just for nostalgic reasons).  What's the best option for moving data off of a 40 meg ST hard drive that doesn't involve 50 floppy disks, opening/cutting the case, or soldering together my own cables? 

[mdivancic]

My TT hard drive is backed up to a flash drive using my NetUSB. I make an image of the flash drive I can keep on my Dropbox account and a local NAS. My other computers are only connected to an UltraSatan and every so often I make an image of the CF card as an backup.