Install Workbench on CF card problems

[sim085]

... this looks like a never ending story ...

Anyway, I managed to partition the drive and I get two disks on desktop labeled "UDH0:NDOS" and "UDH1:NDOS". I selected each one of them and selected format option from toolbar and named them "System" and "Work" respectively. So far so good.

Then I start the installation. However here (not always at the same time) I get an error as follows; "System has checksum error on disk block 998683". If I do retry nothing happens if I do cancel then installation stops.

The fact is that ones I managed to install up to the disk four of workbench and another time only till disk one of workbench. In other words this seem to happen randomly.

Is this related to what MozzerFan is saying here:
http://amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=41762&p=456699

That is that the SanDisk Ultra II 2GB CF card (which I am using) suffers from this type of problem?

or else I am doing something wrong?

Regards,
Sim085

[jj]

Does sound like a problem with either that particular card or the model in particaulr.

Can you try a different one ?

[sim085]

Does sound like a problem with either that particular card or the model in particaulr.

Can you try a different one ?

I will try to get a new one and try on that. I think MozzerFan had told me that Toshiba ones work fine on the A500+ but for now maybe I try to get a 1GB CF card.

I hope MozzerFan can confirm that these are the same errors that he was getting when trying this out.

[motorollin]

Incorrect MaxTransfer rate can, IIRC, cause checksum errors. Search this site for MaxTransfer for posts relating to this, most of which contain posts suggesting the correct rate.

[sim085]

most of which contain posts suggesting the correct rate.

Thank you for the suggestion. Doing so I found out how to change the MaxTransfer and Mask values from the HDToolBox.

However several posters give several values for these two fields. Does anyone know what these values should be?

[motorollin]

Thank you for the suggestion. Doing so I found out how to change the MaxTransfer and Mask values from the HDToolBox.

However several posters give several values for these two fields. Does anyone know what these values should be?

TBH I don't really understand it well enough to advise. As a rule of thumb, any values recommended by Tomas should be safe You could always experiment with a few different values to find which one works.

To be sure it's working, I would change the value and then format the partition to get rid of any residual filesystem corruption, then re-try the installation.

Sorry I can't be more specific, but I don't want to guess at the values for MaxTransfer.

[sim085]

any values recommended by Tomas should be safe

Thanks for the advice, I already found some of his suggestions

[MozzerFan]

@sim085
 
Yep, I got these errors when installing WB2.04. I've tried various maxtransfer settings.
I also changed the gvp rom to 4.13 ( instead of 4.5) and I tried another PSU.
To no avail.
Then I swapped the Sandisk Ultra II 2 GB for an old Toshiba 128 MB CF card.
It worked like a charm.
Like I said in the other thread, you might want to try the old 1 GB Sandisk CF cards.
I use the same CF adapter in my a4000 and a1200 with sandisk ultra II cards with no problems, so I think the GVP scsi controller has problems with the newer highspeed CF cards.
Eventually I swapped the Toshiba card for a Transcend 2 GB SSD, and that one also works like a charm.

[sim085]

@MozzerFan
From what you are saying it seems you had the problem when connecting the CF card to the GVP hard drive, or you also had the problems in WinUAE?

[MozzerFan]

In WinUAE it worked ok.
As soon as I connected it to the GVP hd8+ I got problems with the Utra II card.

[sim085]

In WinUAE it worked ok.
As soon as I connected it to the GVP hd8+ I got problems with the Utra II card.

So there is shit still to come ...

I managed to install Workbench 3.1 through WinUAE by changing the MaxTransfer value to 0x1fe00, while leaving the Mask value as it is.

However I still have to connect everything to the GVP hard drive.

... to be continued ...

Anyways, just out of curiosity; what is the Mask value? I can understand the MaxTransfer but not the Mask.

[MozzerFan]

So there is shit still to come ...
 
I managed to install Workbench 3.1 through WinUAE by changing the MaxTransfer value to 0x1fe00, while leaving the Mask value as it is.
 
However I still have to connect everything to the GVP hard drive.
 
... to be continued ...
 
Anyways, just out of curiosity; what is the Mask value? I can understand the MaxTransfer but not the Mask.

Yeah, I use 0x1FE00 too.
According to my manual, the MASK value should be 0xFFFFFFFE for the gvp hd8+ (so it can use every type of memory for DMA).
 
I hope you have more luck than me when you install the card in your gvp hd.

[sim085]

Yeah, I use 0x1FE00 too.
According to my manual, the MASK value should be 0xFFFFFFFE for the gvp hd8+ (so it can use every type of memory for DMA).

Thank you for that information By any chance, is it possible to change the MaxTransfer and Mask values after the drive is partitioned and Workbench installed?
 

I hope you have more luck than me when you install the card in your gvp hd.

I do not think i'll have but really thank you. I appreciate all the help you gave me

[MozzerFan]

Thank you for that information By any chance, is it possible to change the MaxTransfer and Mask values after the drive is partitioned and Workbench installed?  
 

Yes, you can change it after partitioning and installing WB.
 
Good luck.

[alexh]

Does anyone know what these values should be?

IDE devices (which are ATA5 or lower) have a command set with an 8-bit "sector count" field.
SCSI devices (which are SCSI10) have a command set with a 16-bit "sector count" field.

A sector has been defined (until recently) as 512 bytes.

By setting the MAX TRANSFER to a value of "0x1FE00" (255 * 512) prevents the scsi.device for IDE interfaces from creating malformed IDE commands.

While IDE commands support 8-bit sector counts, not all devices like them. Windows (and other operating systems) tend to transfer data using 128 sector commands. By setting your max transfer to "0xFE00" (127 * 512) you pretty much guarantee "sector count" compatibility with any IDE device.