__boot broken.

Somehow flashfxp or execftps or some combination thereof made it to where I can't use my __boot partition. I tried the DMS tools but they won't let me delete or rename system volumes.

Is there any way to fix this?

A couple of things that may give someone a clue as to what is going wrong.

First, I can't put anything on the MC from the FTP window. It will keep uploading over and over and over again.

Second, after whatever happened happened, LaunchELF's browser will mess up when reading the __boot partition. It shows about 1000 copies of MCManager. IT doesn't show things that I know are there (because I can launch them using their old links in LaunchELF). When I use execftps the FTP window shows things that aren't there as well.

I used the DMS tool to make another partition where I'm going to put HDL and all the other apps I use, but I'd like to be able to reclaim the __boot or at least know what is wrong so I could fix it.

Any ideas?

For the MC did you disable the passive mode ?
Talking about the _boot partition I have the same problem as you: I uploaded a new version of hdloader on the hdd, I did a refresh in flashfxp to see if the transfert was completly done and it ****ed up the partition...
I've created a new partition to store my elf and now I only use the copy function of launchelf in combination with a usb key ;)
The next version of winhiip should be able to erase or create partitions, let's hope it will work for the system's partitions too

@Mosquito2001:
@notmetalenough:

Guys, you seem to be unaware of one of the basic rules for execftps, or any other FTP server currently available on the PS2. The ONLY way to ensure that transfered files are safely stored on the HDD is by unmounting the pfs link used, by using the proper unmounting commad. Normally that command is 'site umnt /pfs/0/' (excluding the quotes).

When/if you break off communication without having unmounted any pfs links used, then they remain active until the ps2 is reset, at which time any data in the caching buffers is lost forever, instead of being properly written to disk. That data may include partial files or whole ones, and even several of both. So anything that *looks* as if it was stored correctly may still be incomplete. And verifying just some file of those transfered says nothing about the integrity of the others.

I repeat:
Proper unmounting before breaking communication is the ONLY way to ensure safe data storage !!!

I have not myself seen any partition as such being damaged by these problems, but I can't rule out the possibility. If folder info was only partly written to the root directory, then that might invalidate the file system on the partition. The partition itself is still intact, but the filesystem driver may refuse to touch it... This is BAAD news, since there is always some risk of comminication being broken by accident/hardware glitch, so that proper unmounting is impossible.

One way of minimizing effects of that risk is to not FTP folders into the root directory of any partition. Do it in subfolders instead, as harm to them should not affect the validity of the filesystem root. You may get stuck with a dud folder then, but at least the other folders of the partition would work.

Best regards: dlanor

so worst case scenario, I could backup all my images on to my PC, and reformat the PS2 drive?

@dlanor
I'm aware of the unmounting procedure an did it before. The refresh was made without thinking (by accident) and before I could realize what I've done, there was nothing left to do :rolleyes:
Hopefully no harm was done to the rest of the file system (from what I can judge or see with winhiip's scan). I only hope that I will be able to format the partition one day without having to reformat the entire drive (and even so 512mb lost doesn't bother me).